[PSUBS-MAILIST] Islamorada Trip Report...

james cottrell via Personal_Submersibles personal_submersibles at psubs.org
Wed Aug 9 11:46:22 EDT 2017


Hi Cliff,
Congrats on your dives. Sub really looks great in those videos.
With regards to an AC solution, one low tech method would be to blow air across ice in a small cooler. Water ice can be super cooled with Dry Ice the night before. Dry ice is about - 100 F and water ice cooled to this temperature should stay cold for quite some time.
Greg C      From: Cliff Redus via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
 To: Personal Submersibles General Discussion <personal_submersibles at psubs.org> 
 Sent: Wednesday, August 9, 2017 9:05 AM
 Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Islamorada Trip Report...
   
Footage from my sub on the trip is limited due to condensation on viewport.  I used Dove soap on the viewport interior prior to taking off but because of the humidity , temperature and duration of the dive, this treatment did not last and I did not have more soap on board.  The other issue is I only had two hand towels on board and these became soaked with sweat.  As such, they were not good for cleaning the condensation off after the two hour tow to the dive site.  Action items:  Have small bottle of Dove soap on board and more towels for future long duration dives.  
Yes, I have been reading up on peltier coolers.  I have quite a bit of battery capacity so this could work.  Unfortunately, mounting on hull won't work for me as I have syntactic foam under the FRP shell over the hull so I don't have a cool surface to mount on.  I do have a pair of plugged off ports on the bottom of the boat that would give me access to cooling water source if I installed a small pump on this circuit.  Pushing this water through a small fin-fan cooler like you would see on water cooled motorcycle would help with the temperature some what but not humidity.   At Islamorada, the average water temperature at the time of the dive was about 87F so this would not have helped all that much.  A small DC AC system that controlled both temperature and humidity would be better.
On the thruster pneumatic pressure compensation, I was very happy with how this worked.  I have all four of my thrusters connected to 1/4" SS tubing that is manifold into a single pressure reducing/relieving regulator (thanks Hugh)  under the cover just aft of the pilot. I was not sure if a single regulator would work or if I would need one for each thruster but it looks like one was adequate.  I have had two deep dives with the arrangement, one to 155 ft and one to 100 ft and have had no issues with water in the thrusters.
Best Regards
Cliff
On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 10:50 PM, Alan via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:

Thanks Cliff,I presume you shot some footage from your sub & this is the entrée!Nice & clear, you must have been pretty happy down there!After you mentioned air conditioning, I looked into peltier elements &air conditioning units. The peltier conditioners have only 25% the efficiency of a normal compression cycle system, but are really small & by reversingthe polarity can act as heaters. A few of those peltier elements stuck to the hull with air channelled past them might be the way to go! Not sure what batteries youare using, but the new battery technologies on the way will make energyexpenditure less of an issue!Do you have all 4 motors exhausting through one regulator? Couldn't see any air coming out of the motor seals so the pressure isn't building up too muchwhen exhausting.Cheers Alan


Sent from my iPad
On 9/08/2017, at 8:25 AM, Cliff Redus via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs. org> wrote:


Added two quick and dirty Youtube videos from 2017 Psubs Regatta.  The first is the 100 ft dive 5.3 miles offshore on Aug 3  https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=sHqL49V0lMw and the second is a night dive in front of Doug's house  https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=KDBw1ZOdKaI.  Alec is working on a more comprehensive video of the Regatta.
Regards
Cliff
On Mon, Aug 7, 2017 at 4:53 PM, Douglas Suhr via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs. org> wrote:

Greetings PSUBS group, Douglas Suhr here to share my take on the 4-day
sub operation we just completed in Islamorada, FL (July 31st, August
1-3).

Wow, what a whirlwind! So July 31st was really an arrival / setup day
with August 1-3 being true operational days. Though it was unfortunate
that Alec wasn't able to make it with Shackleton, we had our hands
full with Cliff's R-300. Without Shackleton, we also had enough time
to get Snoopy set up and lowered into the canal for some basic diving.

List of Crew: Dan Lance, Steve McQueen, Cliff Redus, Rick Maxwell,
River Dolfi, Mike Patterson, Doug, Sarah, Douglas Suhr.

This was my first time meeting Dan Lance, a (retired) saturation diver
and commercial welder. What a pleasure to have him join us on this
operation. Dan is modest, but most willing to share his knowledge and
extensive experience with a newbie like me. So pleased to have chatted
with him in the Keys. During the towing of the R-300, Dan manned the
tow line and helped with comms.

Steve McQueen and River Dolfi did awesome jobs as our frog men.
Filming, attaching / detaching davit and tow lines, etc. they were
both in and out of the water quite a bit (especially Steve). I think
River took a little jelly sting for the team. What troopers!

Cliff and his assistant Rick are such a joy be around. Rick is one of
the friendliest people you'll ever meet (and even brought a gift for
the group: a watermelon, straight from Texas!). Cliff is always
willing to share his expertise (and sub, too) with anyone who'd like
to learn more. I know that between Dan Lance and Cliff, I learned more
than I can remember last week.

Mike Patterson, mom, dad and myself were all just providing whatever
kind of "troop support" we could to Cliff and the R-300.

River, Steve and Myself got in some dive time on Snoopy in the canal
(which was great), but I think the biggest accomplishment was getting
the R-300 out a ways into the ocean.

Our Boston Whaler (a 25' boat with a single 250hp Yamaha) was able to
tow the R-300 out about 5 miles into the ocean (at about 4mph). We
were in radio communication with Cliff most of the time, though we did
suffer a few intermittent losses in comms. When we got to a spot about
100 feet deep, we started to slow down a bit and at that point the tow
line hook (an admittedly cheap thing) let loose(!) so we decided that
we had reached our dive location. We switched from marine radio to OTS
and Cliff started down. Visibility was supurb! As Cliff neared the
bottom at 100 − 110 feet, he was still quite visible from the Whaler!
His 18 foot long R-300 looked to be about 3 inches long, but wow did
it ever stand out from the rest of the sandy bottom. Cliff spent about
an hour "flying" his sub, surfacing, diving and maneuvering about,
testing systems and observing the ocean around him. By the time Cliff
surfaced and we towed back to port Antigua, elapsed time stood at 4.5
/ 5 hours (estimate). Cliff said that he stayed cool by the water
flowing over the sub's dome hatch while in tow. Upon returning I think
we were all ready to take a break, but everyone felt great
accomplishment with the mission.

A couple of lessons I took away from the tow out: We need better tow
equipment (better line, hardware and maybe a quick release). Our boat
REALLY needs a GPS (still don't have one). Towing into waves isn't so
much a problem, but when towing with the waves, our tow line needs to
be measured so as to sustain the proper distance between tow vessel
and sub (otherwise the sub and boat are constantly slacking and then
jerking, stressing the tow line and making it difficult for boat and
sub to track straight).

The devotion of our crew was amazing, even in the heat and the waves
everyone did their jobs. Managing even a small sub operation like this
is more work / effort than meets the eye, that's for sure. At dinner,
one of the main discussions revolved around a support vessel that can
carry a sub or two on board, eliminating the slow, time consuming tow
out to an ocean dive site. Dan Lance shared details on his support
vessel project, which is no doubt going to be a dream in terms of
logistics. Hopefully when said vessel is ready to sail, Dan will lend
its services to host a diving event! ~ Douglas S.

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