From: "Jay K. Jeffries" <bottomgun@mindspring.com>
To: "'Joseph Perkel'" <joeperkel@hotmail.com>
Subject: Skinny Water Launch/Recovery Issues, Part 1
Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2006 11:24:54 -0500
Joe,
Could you try to forward these tot eh list for me as they seem to not be going through.
R/Jay
Note: Sent this last night but it appears to have not gone through or was restricted to size, so have broken it into two parts.
Let us carefully define the launch issue in Southern Florida as everyone may not fully understand the problems with launching a submersible there. If you can ramp launch a sub in Southern Florida?s restrictive environment, you should be able to launch anywhere so a solution here should help everybody. The best solution will be simple and relying on little or no additional mechanics (KISS). I don?t have all of the solutions and would like input to expand on this mental exercise.
Defining the issues:
1. Shallow sloped, long ramps
a. Pros:
i. Easy to drive up and down
b. Cons:
i. Usually has skinny water associated with it making it difficult to get the sub off of the trailer
ii. May have a hole at the bottom of the ramp allowing submersible launch but the sub is then surrounded by water to shoal to maneuver
2. Steeply sloped, short ramp
a. Pros:
i. May have more water at the bottom of the ramp
b. Cons:
i. Often have shallow water at the bottom of the ramp for quite a ways
ii. Trailer tongue may be
iii. Hole may be at the bottom of the ramp and if trailer goes over ramp end, trailer removal becomes difficult (especially if there was insufficient draft to launch the sub).
3. Shallow (skinny water) at the ramp (usual case)
a. Pros:
i. None that I can think of
b. Cons:
i. Difficult to impossible to launch sub from a regular flatbed trailer
ii. Even if you can get your sub off of the trailer, it is aground
4. Hole at the end of the ramp
a. Pros:
i. Makes floating sub off of trailer easier
b. Cons:
i. Hole may be at the bottom of the ramp and if trailer goes over ramp end, trailer removal becomes difficult (especially if there was insufficient draft to launch the sub).
5. Long run in skinny water to channel
a. Pros:
i. None that I can think of
b. Cons:
i. A tender is necessary to tow the sub to deep water (or)
ii. Diesel power required in sub
6. Long run to dive site (or sufficient water to dive in) channel
a. Pros:
i. None that I can think of
b. Cons:
i. A tender is necessary to tow the sub to deep water (or)
ii. Diesel power required in sub
7. ~3 ft tide
a. Pros:
i. Long, highly sloped ramps are not necessary
b. Cons:
i. High tide may still not provide sufficient water to launch or directly operate the sub from the ramp.
ii. May have to wait on high tide for a launch or recovery
8. Travel lift
a. Pros:
i. Easy transition from trailer to water
b. Cons:
i. Expense of launching and recovery quickly adds up
ii. Many marinas with travel launches only want to deal with boats in their facility
iii. Still have to get to the dive site
9. Mucky bottom at launch site and out to channel
a. Pros:
i. Objects striking it do not tend to break
b. Cons:
i. Non-bearing bottom structure tends to mire down anything attempting to operate on it
ii. Fine silt of muck quickly deteriorates equipment with moving parts.
10. Lengthy ramp time due to rigging extended tongue or cable
a. Pros:
i. None
b. Cons:
i. Insufficient room usually to rig a cable between vehicle and trailer
ii. Due to busy nature of ramps in FL, many irate people waiting on you
Potential solutions for skinny water launch/recovery in Florida waters in presented in Part 2
Respectfully,
Jay K. Jeffries
Andros Is., Bahamas
Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
- Alexandre Dumas