[PSUBS-MAILIST] First Launch

[James Frankland]

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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