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RE: [PSUBS-MAILIST] live aboard submarine yacht - affordable
Brent, i see no big problem in promoting submarine yachting. Argumenting the benefit is easy. (storm safe, burgler safe, independent, quiet sleep, economy, marina free operation, on open ocean living, you name it - see it on my website ...)
The problem until now was that building a hull size and form that would allow "submarine
yachting" was offered at "a couple of million dollars" building cost and a couple of million of dollars maintainance cost - nothing else. The only reasonable projects like carstens and peters, alicia from marlinsub, did not target the yachting segment, Ben Franklin was a concept study and a similar concept never got offered to yachting market.
So i am sure that as soon as we get the boat (we are building for Ian right now) to water and move it up to california (showing it to the public in each port) - we will end up with dozends or
hundreds of orders. Simply because the questions "can it be done", and "can it be economically
viable" will be definitifly answered with a 200 ton 18m long YES - and everybody can see it - no doubt about it.
In fact with the prototype testing all concept questions are answered since 1993/96 - the problem was that only a few habitants of a alpine lake knew about it...and those are not the people that we are targeting from a "marketing point of view" for implementing submarine yachting.
The breathing problem is a good example why making a yacht sub big enough is so essential - the size solves a lot of problems - from CO2 scrubbing, to ocean crossing, to live aboard, etc...
A person has a breating rate of 8liters/minute this gives you 125 minutes in a 1tonner to finish up the atmosphere of the artefact but it gives you 25.000 minutes (416 hours=17days) in a 200 tonner.
So this means a couple of days to come to the point where CO2 scrubbing is needed - problem solved - pellet cost cut - oxigen tank and sistem cost cut. Sistem danger like bottle explosion oxigen fire cut.
So if you like plants and closed ambient experiments - enjoy the challenge- but this is not a problem that will EVER come up in submarine yachting practice unless you run a crew of hundreds of mariners like a nuke sub.
You are imagining a submarine yacht as something that has a big energy need, giant battery banks, etc... you should get away from that picture - that is military - step away from it - far away.
The sistem we have in mind is floating on ocean currents, sitting on water layer (like BEN FRANKLIN) whale like locomotion 14kg diesel use per cruising day.
Much more economic in fuel than a motor yacht, submerged cruising needs 5 times less energy than surface cruising ( http://imulead.com/tolimared/concretesubmarine/anuncios/ay ) easy handling - in fact we are developing the concept to "open ocean living" concepts as we step it up in size.
The only "sistem" that a submarine yacht has that a normal yacht would NOT have is a hull capable to submerge, and a small ballast tank to do so.
So there is no "rocket science" involved and no "rocket science budget" needed to pull it off.
Of course there will be owners who will fill their submarine yacht with tons of tech stuff - just as there are yacht owners to do so - but this is not a MUST have -
There might also be a green minded owners floating around on open ocean, submerged, hearing whale songs moving with the currents extracting a living from the sourrounding ocean.
The problem we have at the moment is that many people can not see this things as there is actually no boat out there DOING so - the last one was BEN FRANKLIN decades ago.
What we have to do is getting submarine yachting back on yachtmans map and the ultra luxury segment is not necessary the best segment to do so - the "individualisic yacht owner" is.
The best way to promote the concept is doing it in front of the public eye. This is what we are going to do and ians boat will be "first of a kind". 

Wil
(www.concretesubmarine.com)


Quoting Brent Hartwig <brenthartwig@hotmail.com>:



Hi Wil,You
bring up a good point that I don't hear talked about much for promoting the
sale of Yacht Submarines, of having a safe harbor in open seas. I
usually just think about it for my personal live aboard sub. The
ussubmarines.com site uses the the phrase, " The Safest Place on Earth"
to promote there luxury sub designs. When ever I mention my interest in
building a live aboard sub to someone that is not familiar with subs,
they ask me why I would want to do that, and I usually start with
asking them, "haven't you watched the movie "The Perfect Storm?" and
they start to get the idea. According to the makers of the movie,  they over
exaggerated the size of the wave in the movie, but regardless of that,
there are still plenty of deadly waves to deal with.

I just
recently was looking at the cover of a sailing magazine and noticed
that all the faces of the crew on the racing sailboat that was on the
cover, were red from wind burn. It didn't look like much fun to me.
One thing I do think about is how at times storms can go on for weeks
at a time and so if you plan to stay down that long you will need allot
of stored O2, Sofnolime or the like, just to name a few.  Of course in
a quality built sub you could surface for a short time in allot of
storms to take in fresh air and then go back down, but if your air
systems are up to par in the first place, the O2 and CO2 levels will be
good when you surface so there wouldn't be any bad air to exchange,
unless you had depleted your supplies.

I had thought about a air
recirculation buoy with a triple redundant automatic shut of system to
keep water out of the intake and exhaust, for shallower diving to
weather a storm or just overnight sleeping, so you wouldn't use up your
stored O2 and CO2 scrubber supplies. Basically it's a flexible snorkel
that would be best for a static positioning of the sub.  If you can
anchor or bottom out while submerged in a current, you can generate
power from turbines. Here is a link to one interesting water turbine
design.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0517-05.htm

If
you can use a wind or water turbines and/or solar panels to run a O2 producing 
device, that would go along way to giving the sub a longer endurance
overall.  Since scrubber pellets can be pretty expensive in some
places, it's to bad we don't usually have enough extra power when submerged to run metal halide or other full spectrum lights long term for specific types of 
air and/or aquatic plants that convert CO2 to O2 quickly, so you would
only need the Sofnolime as a backup as well as conserve you compressed O2 supplies. I heard that NASA is testing a number of closed loop systems, using plants in the system for the planned trip 
to Mars, to remove CO2, filter water, recycle human waste, and produce
food and O2.

Perhaps if you have large enough battery banks
and can produce power from renewable sources, you could have enough
power for lighting and heating your plants while submerged.  My experience
with plants and animals tells me you need allot of plants per person to
pull it off, or some pretty amazing plants. Plant's can produce CO2
when in the dark, so keep that in mind. There was a sealed Biosphere project some years back, I believe it was in Arizona, that tried to seal in some people and animals, and they got caught bringing in fresh air from outside. I remember thinking to myself that they had to many people and animals for the amount of flora in the enclosed system. It's a little like aquariums, you don't have to do water changes if you have enough plants, and a good enough biological filter system for the amount of fish in the tank. But usually people want loads of fishes, so they have to do water changes to remove the excess ammonia, nitrates, and nitrites. Also since allot of modern tanks have such close fitting tops to reduce evaporation, fish jumping out, and salt creep in saltwater tanks, they reduce gas exchange on the surface. So it's possible to kill the fish from to much CO2 in the water, even when there is plenty of O2 in the water.
Even if you didn't use renewable energy to charge your battery banks for being used for plant lighting and heating, it might be worth doing some math to figure out how much each stored KW of power cost if it comes from a generator, then figure how to produce an educated guess of what the KW usage of lighting and heating a greenhouse space would be that would produce X amount of O2 and correspondingly absorb X amount of CO2. Then figure in what your bought O2 and Sofnolime pellets cost for the same about of O2 produced from the greenhouse and correspondingly how much Sofnolime is used to absorb the same about of CO2. With good quality insulation for the greenhouse room and some energy efficient lighting like full spectrum florecents and/or some new type of full spectrum LED lighting you might come out ahead cost wise, buying diesel instead of buying compressed O2 and Sofnolime or the like. Also you may be in places of the world you cannot acquire compressed O2 and/or Sofnolime. But diesel is usually allot easier to find. You might even choose to use bio-diesel.
A added bonus of having a greenhouse in your live aboard sub, might be having fresh veggies to go with your fish dinners. Perhaps even some strawberries for your cereal. ;)' If you make your greenhouse hyperbaric and add one additional atmosphere of pressure, your plants should grow at a much faster pace then they would normally. You have to pump in the CO2 of course. I'm planning on converting a 500 gallon used propane tank to test this out. That would change the math a fair bit. 

Regards,
Brent Hartwig


Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 17:25:35 -0800
From: clientes@tolimared.com
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] live aboard submarine yacht - affordable

Hello Carsten,

Of course they send their megayachts across the ocean to live aboard
in a protected marina on the other side - this is why a sub-yacht that
can have a quiet harbor in open water is so desireable in yachting
community. You must go big (like a cruiseship) or you must go below.

A 20+ rooms is not a problem - submerged concrete cilinders of 24m
diameter are in use at open sea at Troll platform as we speak -
performing 300m diving depth. So this is proven tecnology. Only thing
missing is somebody putting things together and pull it off.

Here in Cartagena i have drydocking of 120m x 22m installed and
available from my shipyard partners - NAVTECH and COTECMAR - so if
somebody funds it i can build it. This should be big enough even for a
billionaire to find space for a king size bed and armani shoes...

I am sure we can do it with a normal megayacht budget. Counting on
your partnership when the first order comes in - working on that...

Your bread job and your hobby could come neatly together in such a project.

Let me hear your thoughts...

Kindest Regards,

Wilfried Ellmer
(www.concretesubmarine.com)



Quoting MerlinSub@t-online.de:

> Sorry to say but big motoryachts are my mainjob.
> Most owners of megayachts send them across the ocean
> with crew only.. and fly when they arrived.
>
> Difficult to build a spacious submarine for somebody
> normal living in a house with 20+ rooms..
>
> regards Carsten
>
> <clientes@tolimared.com> schrieb:
>> Hello Peter, Carsten, Brent, Brian, Ian,
>>
>> I like your DIOGENES (greek philosopher living in a barril) approach.
>> And i am with you when you say that a person can live in hull of some
>> 2m inner diameter (a small trailer has that) - this is sufficient to
>> stand up and strech out - which is the basic requirement.
>>
>> People have crossed oceans in canoes and live rafts but what we seek
>> and try to implement with ians 200 ton submarine is oceancrossing as a
>> "pleasant yachting experience" not as a "survival experience".
>>
>> I like peters aproach especially because it shows that "living in a
>> submarine" is a experience that can be at least than satisfying as
>> living on board of a yacht.
>>
>> In fact a submarine is the only living space available to have a fine
>> dinner and a good night sleep during a storm in open sea.  As soon as
>> you resolve the space problem you get a "on water living" concept that
>> is quite revolutionary. "The oceancrossing submarine yacht".
>>
>> It was quite revealing to me when i boarded my submarine on a cold
>> winter day with minus 20 degrees and found the temperature inside at
>> 10 degrees plus (the water temp) - no heating at all - water living
>> has its advantages.
>>
>> The question is how can we make private submarines big enough that a
>> average person (and his wife!) would enjoy living on board the whole
>> year maybe travelling worldwide.
>>
>> I think ians boat will be the final answer to that. People will come
>> on board and say whow - that is spacier than my new york
>> apartment...it is living space in miami, cancun, montecarlo, all
>> together - affordable maintainance cost - that makes sense ! Ians boat
>> will have 4,6m diameter x 18m.
>>
>> As soon as this boat is on yachtmens map (and we will put it there)
>> big finance and further development will come quickly - counting on
>> you submariners to join me in this ... finally i am market development
>> manager not engineer...carsten, remember you promised...
>>
>> Mfg
>>
>> W.Ellmer
>> (concretesubmarine.com)
>>
>>
>> Quoting Brent Hartwig <brenthartwig@hotmail.com>:
>>
>> >
>> > Hello Peter,What type of insulation did you use for the UC-3 ?  A
>> > number of guys talk about launch dates, but your one of those guys
>> > that will likely do it. ; )'   Life has a way of getting in the way
>> > of one finishing there goals, unless there truly focused and
>> > dedicated. You Peter, are very focused and truly dedicated. But I
>> > suspect you truly like living in UC-3, so it might no be as much of
>> > a sacrifice to you as it would be to some other SMMO's
>> >
>> > I know all about giving up a supper comfortable place to live to
>> > save money for ones goals. When I first started my commercial
>> > tropical bird farm.  I stayed in my minivan and then later in an
>> > large old cold storage room that was once used for storing the fresh
>> >  eggs when the buildings where used for layer chickens, many years
>> > before.  That room was the most insulated room in the facility, so
>> > at least I could stay warm, but as you would expect there were no
>> > windows, and it was hard to bring a date home and hang out in the
>> > cooler.  In hind sight I should of acquired a lava lamp, and set up
>> > my aquariums. ; )'
>> >
>> > Regards,
>> > Brent Hartwig
>> >
>> >> From: peter@submarines.dk
>> >> To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
>> >> Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] 20ton/20meter diesel electric psubs
>>  onyoutube.
>> >> Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 00:12:04 +0100
>> >>
>> >> Sir,
>> >>
>> >> I have for one year now lived on UC-3 during har construction. She is 2 
>> >> meters diameter and 32 tonnes.
>> >> Its very much okay, she is insulated and has a kitchen and a bathroom. Of 
>> >> cause you need to be a little mad to do so, but it saves me a
>> lot of money
>> >> not to have to have other housing during the constution.
>> >>
>> >> I agree that 6000 nm is extreme for the boat seen on youtube.
>> >>
>> >> UC-3 is launched by may 2008
>> >>
>> >> Regards,
>> >>
>> >> Peter
>> >>
>> >> ----- Original Message -----
>> >> From: <clientes@tolimared.com>
>> >> To: <personal_submersibles@psubs.org>
>> >> Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 3:11 PM
>> >> Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] 20ton/20meter diesel electric psubs
>>  onyoutube.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Hi Ian,
>> >>
>> >> Whow what a boat! But 6000nm range - not in practice - living space is
>> >> 20m long which leaves some 1m hull diameter for a 20 tonner (20 cubic
>> >> meter space) - to stay in for a day - well for a claustrofobic prove
>> >> charakter - to stay in for a month - or even a weekend - no way! So
>> >> too small for being really autonomous...
>> >>
>> >> My prototype was a 20 tonner but not that long and thinn - euronaut is
>> >> 70 tons - planed for weekend tours - a boat with "live aboard quality"
>> >> similar to a yacht needs at least 100 tons see BEN FRANKLIN (130 tons).. 
>> >>
>> >> By the way your 200 tonner is already aproved by dimar counteradmiral
>> >> peña firmed the paper i have a meeting with the boss of cotecmar this
>> >> monday - this will decide if we build in cotecmar or navtech.
>> >>
>> >> W.Ellmer
>> >> (www.concretesubmarine.com)
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Quoting irox <irox@ix.netcom.com>:
>> >>
>> >> >
>> >> > 20 meters
>> >> > 20 tons
>> >> > 260hp diesel/electric drive
>> >> > 6000nm range
>> >> >
>> >> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmSpYzgfOs8
>> >> >
>> >> > I've not heard of this craft before, does anybody know anything
>> >> > about it?
>> >> >
>> >> > Cheers,
>> >> >  Ian.
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
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