[Member-Forum] First Launch

[Cliff Redus]

Congratulation James!  The first time we get these boats in the water is a special time.  I like the mods you have made to the forward and aft MBTs.  They really change the profile of the boat from the standard K350.  Your next big thrill will be just sitting on the bottom for the first time.
 
Regards
  

________________________________
 From: James Frankland <jamesf at guernseysubmarine.com>
To: personal_submersibles at psubs.org; member-forum at psubs.org 
Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2013 4:06 AM
Subject: [Member-Forum] First Launch
  


Hi All, 

I got my boat in the water at the weekend for the first time.  Put the pictures up here. 

http://www.guernseysubmarine.com/operations.htm 

I didnt get any leaks at all, so i was super happy.  I wasnt really expecting to try and dive and would have been happy with just no leaks and a float test, but everything worked fine, so i gave it a go.  Unfortunately i didnt have enough lead.  I added 90KG (198lb) of lead, but it still wouldnt go down.  What i didnt mention on the website was that i was forced to stop testing because the harbour master came along to say that they had had an anonymous phone call from some bloody do-gooder who pointed out that we were using the comercial area of the harbour and didnt have a proper comercial dive team, which is officially a legal requirement.  So even though i had full permission from the harbour, i was forced to stop on a technicality.  They think it was some missery that has the hump on with harbour and just wanted to be awkward.  Shame because I was about to load a pile of anchor chain into the boat to get me more weight. 

The boat did seem to be very light at the back and i kept squirting air into the forward tank to level it out.  Thinking about it, i suspect that the forward tank was settling into the correct position and it was the aft tank that was riding high.  Just need to get some weight at the back.  I had a slight list to port as well which i've no idea where that came from.  Again i will trim that up. 

Anyway, i was really pleased with how it went on my first day.  Im meeting my divers tonight who took a load of underwater pics apparently, so i will see how they look later.  Might put some on the web if they are any good. 

Kind Regards
James 




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