One more thing. I liken the fwd mbt of a k-350 to the brow on a Pisces. It builds a pressure wave at speed and water flows down around the hull. A standard Pisces could not perform mid-water transits, for instance. It always climbed. The depth gauges were coarse, so you'd be doing a sort of long Alpha wave sort of movement through the water, slowly up and slowly down. The only time it ever worked was when the guy bolted enormous plywood fins on the ass end to countersteer with. I'd think you'd have to call those things control surfaces, yes? In the words of Will Smith: Whooee! I got to get me some of these!!!
I think the difficulty with tracking straight is not related to the thruster configuration but to the dynamic stability characteristics of PSUB hulls. Very few subs have clean lines or anything resembling a keel. To take a K boat, for instance, there must be all kinds of strange turbulence going on in the MBT openings and the various underbelly appendages. Snoopy is equally unstable running on the stern thruster or the side thrusters.
This is just a theory, I have no way to substantiate it.
Alec
Another issue with side thrusters alone is that it is virtually impossible to drive the boat in a straight line. I spent a season operating Leo, and it was quite a lesson after all the years with that big, dependable Perry wheel chunking around behind you. What you end up doing is setting both motors for transit, and then varying the power on one to hold the compass course.
It is the same with the sgt, Peppers with ist fixed 4 thrusters and 1 main engine. On surface transit it looks like you’ve drunk way to much; especially with wind and waves.
A gyro autopilot is complicated but should be nice. Without ,too much of your attention just for keeping coarse.
Regards, Emile
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