RE: [PSUBS-MAILIST] sunken ferry update

["Gregory B. Snyder" <snyder@mnrad.com>]

Thanks for the interesting post Phil.
Nice to have someone living the dream who will take the time for the
rest of us!
Best Wishes-
Greg

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org
[mailto:owner-personal_submersibles@psubs.org] On Behalf Of Phil Nuytten
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 11:10 PM
To: INTERNET:personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] sunken ferry update


Hey Rick!
        Long time no talk. Man, that was a long adress for the story on
the Ferry.  . .I would have given an account of the dives but the
Transport Safety Board slapped a 'communication ban' on the whole thing,
and posted signs on the worksite that any one who yapped to the press
would be charged. Sounds like these guys have taken a leaf from the
airport security book! Anyhow, I can't tell you anymore than has been
released by the TSB; The 350'+ vessel 'Queen of the North' is sitting
upright and intact in 1400 feet of water. She 'skied' in, with the
result that the bottom mud/silt ( actually, glacial flour-type sediment)
is up to her car-deck . . .about 30-35 feet above her keel. She must
have produced an enormous dust-cloud that followed her down slope and
drifted over top of her - she's covered with a light layer of fines.
        Viz is good- about 30-40 feet, but lots of back-scatter in the
HMI lights, because of dense crystal critter life in the water column
(tentaphores,siphonophores,et.,etc.). Video recording has gone well in
last couple of days and it looks as though the crew will  be packing it
in tomorrow. The little DeepWorker2000's performed perfectly, as they
most often do - and so did the crew. Using a precision wireless tracking
system coupled with a Racal-designed position plotting system
('winfrog'), we were able to 'chain over' or interpolate the subs
position to the surface-mounted DGPS and get a precise GPS coordinate
for every significant  part of the wreck. This is all plotted on an
electronic chart in the tracking shack, and will allow us to return
directly to any specific location. A lot of this stuff was honed on
cable tracking. We do many cable inspections every year and any damage
or suspensions have to be position recorded with sub-metre accuracy, so
we can find 'em again. When we first go on the job we transpose their
'as-laid' chart onto our electronic chart and mark all their 'known'
cable positions as red lines. We then dump the sub in and fire up the
Nuytco-designed  cable-tracker, correlate it with the acoustic
transmitter and start following the cables - buried or laying visible on
the bottem- this automatically produces a green line on the electronic
chart/grid. Kinds fun to watch the engineers eyes bug out when they see
how far away the red lines are from the green lines!
        This sure is an interestin' way to make a living! Regards Phil
Nuytten
        




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603-529-1100
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