Frank,
Yes, I did see that drawing. What you describe, is an articulated tug-barge combination, or integrated tug barge depending on connection. You usually see this in protected waters, they seem to prefer to "drag" offshore tows.
I was going to defer this for another time regarding surface support vessels. But, one reason that I found the submersible LRT barge interesting, was the possibility of mating it to the bow of this......
http://boatplans-online.com/proddetail.php?prod=HB20
Click on the "study plans" and "building method", and you will see that this would go together real quick, and a whole lot of "bang for the buck", which is always welcome.
Now granted, this particular little barge, is best suited for protected waters but, it has the advantage of the fact that my wife, actually wants me to build this, and is quite excited about it. I figure having the topside crew "comfy", will make taking the sub out, more enjoyable for all involved, and this would make week-long jaunts...quite doable.
So if you should come across a viable interconnection scheme....I'm all "ears", or "eyes" as the case may be!
The problems of launch, retrieval, transport and surface support, are very real us.
Joe
From: ShellyDalg@aol.com
Reply-To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
To: personal_submersibles@psubs.org
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Launch Retrieval Transport
Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2006 14:37:53 EST
Has anyone seen the old conceptual sketch I put up on frappr? The idea is to have a pontoon section attached to the sub with a quick disconnect, and the pontoon section stays afloat with genset, winch, compressor, communication base, ( and sun shade with cooler full of beer!) and most importantly......an outboard motor which will drive the sub/pontoon section to the dive site quickly. A hundred horse Merc should push the craft at 15 to 20 knots so a dive site 2 miles off shore could be reached in an hour or less. Separate the two, and take er down. If the depth is fairly shallow, stay tethered to the pontoon with air, elec, and wired communications, plus a steel tether to keep you from getting too deep. Pretty much gives you unlimited bottom time and unlimited power ( size the motors to overcome the additional drag caused by the tether) and should be pretty simple down to say 150 feet deep.For deeper dives, cut loose, and go on battery power alone, but with the pontoon section being driven around on top by the surface crew.If you never wanted to go deeper than 150 feet, you could use an all A.C. system with big motors and run a 220 volt power supply down to the sub, fed by an onboard genset.You'd still need battery back-up to run the C.D. player, and all the other back-up systems like air, but you could run some really big thrusters.Sorry guys.....Just mind wandering.......Frank D.