[PSUBS-MAILIST] Jodie-B dives at last.

Tue May 27 08:22:10 EDT 2014

Ditto, James. Congratulations.
Vance

-----Original Message-----
From: Alec Smyth via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
To: Personal Submersibles General Discussion <personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
Sent: Tue, May 27, 2014 8:13 am
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Jodie-B dives at last.

Congrats! That was an excellent report, and I'm truly looking forward to many a future adventure. You're one of a very small number of PSUB operators with ready access to the sea, so I hope Jodie-B produces many a story. 

Best,

Alec

On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 6:23 AM, James Frankland via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:

Hi All,

Managed to get my boat in the water this weekend at last.  I used the crane again to lift in and out.  My trailer needs some modification before i can use it.  Plus the crane is a lot easier just for initial testing.

I had proper commercial divers and boat in the water this time so i was doing everything proper.  

I attached a temporary wooden bar to the side of the starbord battery pod and hung weights on that until it was trimmed up sideways.  Put 24kg of lead on that side.  Then loaded up with lead inside and eventually put in 160kg (352 pounds) on top of what i'd already put under the deck and rear tank.  Estimate ive added a total of 250kg (550 pounds) of lead both inside out out.  Maybe i should get on the pies and sausages.

Once trimmed up i managed to dive at last.  Didnt really intend to go to the bottom but didnt have a lot of choice on the first ever dive.  Landed on the bottom of the harbour at 6m (20ft).  Went up and down loads of times and got the hang of getting neutral using the variable tank.  Seem to have got the weight about right.  Drove about just off the seabed and found it was quite easy to spin around and control.  Drove around on the surface a bit as well to test surface running.  Again this was ok using the rear thruster.

Some problems.  Internal depth gauges didnt work at all, had to rely on the exterior one.  Ive put the pipe work going up so there must be an airlock.  Never thought of that when i was fitting it.  Will probably make an oil bladder.  No big deal.

Port side motor stopped working.  I thought it might have filled with water, but when i drained it, it was all ok.  Unplugged it and plugged it back in and its now working again.  Not exactly sure what was wrong there.

Got an air bubble stuck in the forward tank that could not be removed if the boat didnt go down evenly.  A tactical hole should sort that out.

Quite a bit of corrosion on the dome retaining ring which is not anodized.  Not sure how i can stop that.

I'd filled the variable tank with Lanolin to protect it in storage but although id pumped most of it out before diving, some residue was left and formed a greasy film on the surface of the water.  This got on the video camera and has fuzzed up a lot of the videos.

Completely forget to test the lights until right at the end.  Put them on for about 5 mins, but not enough time for a proper corrosion test.

A completely random X girlfriend turned up.  I think she was with one of the divers and didnt realise it was me.  I popped out of the hatch and could see she was suprised "er, hello".  That was a bit awkward.

Divers scratched my lovely new lettering.  grrrr

All in all a fantastic day for me and i celebrated with several small pressurised cannisters later in the evening....

Ive got loads of pics and video which i'll send in the next day or so after ive sorted them all out.

Kind Regards
James

_______________________________________________
Personal_Submersibles mailing list
Personal_Submersibles at psubs.org
http://www.psubs.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/personal_submersibles

_______________________________________________
Personal_Submersibles mailing list
Personal_Submersibles at psubs.org
http://www.psubs.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/personal_submersibles

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.whoweb.com/pipermail/personal_submersibles/attachments/20140527/31dd9f8a/attachment.html>