[PSUBS-MAILIST] Dive fail.

["Carsten Standfuß" via Personal_Submersibles]

For what reason you have the 5 portholes in your ballast tank?  
Scuba diver inside the tank??

vbr Carsten 

"James Frankland via Personal_Submersibles" <personal_submersibles at psubs.org> schrieb: 
Hi All,

I had a failure of a day on Sat.  I put the boat in, and it had a leak.  Not into the pressure hull, so it wasnt a complete failure, but the leak was from the forward main tank.  The nearly useless windows that I put on the forward tank were leaking air.  Not just a little bit which I could have put up with it, but loads.  The boat was diving quicker than venting normally.  

I pulled it out and went around tightening them up.  Put it back in and it didn't make any difference.

It was strange as they have been perfectly ok before.  I think the problem is that on Friday while I was prepping the boat for diving, I went around and tightened the bolts.  It must have broken the seals.  

Anyway.  I could have possibly winged it by running with a reduced main ballast, but as I was heading into the open sea, I thought I best be sensible and call it off.

So It was in for about 10 minutes.  Pulled it out and was home by 8:30, very disappointed.

Spent the afternoon sticking them in with Sikaflex and moaning.

Hope these pics make it through.  You can just see the air spilling from the widows in the second picture and the boat is going down nose first.

Kind Regards
James





 
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