[PSUBS-MAILIST] publicity

Thu Jun 18 10:38:34 EDT 2020

Very cool. And I'm pretty sure George thought the Norwegian owners were dreaming. Their idea was to put a sub on every rig complex in the North Sea, and operate them with only small boats for comms and support. They could have asked me. I'd have told them a little about winter gales and 5-8 meter seas. Aside from a bad idea at the start, what really happened was that ROV technology caught up. The oil companies and engineers liked people in subs, but the lawyers and insurance companies did not. George had a heck of a time reacquiring the 600. It got hung up in legalese in Norway and was going to be junked, or just stuck in a corner somewhere and forgotten. It was and is (arguably) the nicest sub George ever built, so I was happy to see it saved, and very pleased indeed when you snagged it.Vance

-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Wallace via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
To: Personal Submersibles General Discussion <personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
Sent: Thu, Jun 18, 2020 9:25 am
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] publicity

  Nice history lesson Vance.  We need you to write a book.  Regarding K600, it was tested to 380 psi at Annapolis, so 850-877 feet depending upon salt or fresh water.  I've got the placards that were attached to the sub, a photo of them at SUBDB.INFO.  Easy to understand why George felt he could get to 900+ feet with it.  I've got all the documentation regarding the K600 build including calcs, notes, and communications.  My impression is that the K600 fabrication ended with lots of animosity between Kittredge and the buyer, both not trusting the other.  Kittredge was suppose to build additional K600's for the company but because of their mutual "issues", both parties agreed to end their business agreement and so only one was ever built.  I know that the engineer for the company required Kittredge to install thicker end caps, and also required thru-hull penetrator cables for main batteries rather than the K-350 design.  I've got the invoice as well, final cost of the certified K600 in 1979 was $101,000. 
  Jon

  On 6/17/2020 2:15 PM, via Personal_Submersibles wrote:

True in parts. George tested an early K-250 in the Navy test tank in Annapolis. His buddy the Admiral was a structural design engineer of Navy subs, and had done the figures on the little sub's hull. The boys at the shop in Maryland didn't take them seriously. They figured the whole thing would implode at about twenty feet. George knew better. He told them the first thing to go would be the acrylic dome, and he figured that would happen at 800 feet or thereabouts. Which is exactly what happened. After the factory was built in Maine and he started on K-350s, he bought some 5' hemispheres and planned to build his own tank test facility for the shop. This was never completed. Almost every sub was drop tested in a 500 foot hole off the mouth of the Weskeag River. A couple of them were built for operatibns to 500 feet, and were tested in deeper water out in Penobscot Bay. The K-600 was built to Lloyd's spec had to be tank tested with an inspector present. So, back to Annapolis. I think they tested it to 750 feet per Lloyd's instructions for certification to 600 feet. Later on, George reacquired the K600 and was on board with some other guys to buy a boat and take the whole package to Columbia for a treasure hunt in 900 feet of water. He was confident the 600 would do that handily. They actually bought the old Coast Guard coastal tug the 'Snohomish', but the Colombians ended up saying sure, you can dive for treasure, but whatever you find belongs to the Colombian people, and you have to give it all to us. Which pretty much killed the profit margin on that particular pipe dream. If that hadn't happened, the K600 would have become a K900. Or so the story goes. Then George and I collaborated on the design for a K1000. I've got the initial prints, but that one was never built, either. Too bad. 
 Vance

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