[PSUBS-MAILIST] Titan submersible missing at Titanic site

Sun Jun 25 21:14:00 EDT 2023

If it's the guy I'm thinking of, the sub was made of reinforced 
concrete, not ferrocement.

Marc

On 6/25/2023 11:07 PM, Alec Smyth via Personal_Submersibles wrote:
> There's an interesting story about cement subs, which I will tell to 
> the best of my recollection. In the early years we had a PSUBS member 
> whose name I forget, I believe Swiss or Austrian, who had built a 
> ferrocement sub that he kept at a mooring in a Swiss lake. The sub was 
> successful, he dived it for years. But eventually he moved to Colombia 
> due to marriage, and scuttled the sub in the lake, because the road he 
> had used to take it there had been re-routed or modified somehow, 
> leaving him without any way of getting it out. The sub became an 
> attraction for local SCUBA divers.
>
> The second part of the story is that another PSUBS member, Ian 
> Roxborough, hired the first guy to build him a large cement sub with 
> the intention of making it an ocean going live-aboard. The project was 
> done completely on the level, with notification to authorities and in 
> a major port. This was no drug sub built in the jungle. It got to the 
> point where the hull was complete, and I think they were about for the 
> first launch. However, Colombia being plagued by drug subs, the 
> authorities would not sign off on final paperwork or something (can't 
> remember the exact glitch.) Ian had sunk a ton of funds into it, and 
> the sub was probably perfectly good, but approval never came. I'm not 
> sure what happened to the sub. But Ian is still very much active, so 
> maybe can tell us. I'm not sure if he's on the email list. If you are, 
> Ian, sorry for bringing up this rather painful memory!
>
> Best,
> Alec
>
> On Sun, Jun 25, 2023 at 8:35 AM Marc de Piolenc via 
> Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:
>
>     That's it. I lost interest when I realized he had built a
>     superstructure on a conventional pressure hull.
>
>     Very sorry  to hear about Brian Cox.
>
>     Marc
>
>     On 6/25/2023 6:11 PM, Jon Wallace via Personal_Submersibles wrote:
>>     Marc, that was probably Brian Cox who passed away a year or so
>>     ago.  His pressure hull was steel but he did use ferrocement for
>>     the superstructure.
>>     http://www.subdb.info/cgi/database/showvessel/index.cgi?ID=1272980224&VN=Esmae&VT=1
>>     <http://www.subdb.info/cgi/database/showvessel/index.cgi?ID=1272980224&VN=Esmae&VT=1>
>>
>>     There are no standards for using ferrocement as a manned
>>     submarine pressure hull and I think anyone attempting it would
>>     find little support for the project given the Ocean Gate loss.
>>
>>     Jon
>>
>>
>>     On Sunday, June 25, 2023 at 04:09:00 AM EDT, Marc de Piolenc via
>>     Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
>>     <mailto:personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>>     I know. I fell in love with FC for yachts, which made me wonder how
>>     useful it would be for pressure hulls... Turns out there is a 2010
>>     exchange of messages in my archive with somebody on this list who
>>     built
>>     in FC, Brian Cox. Is he still there?
>>
>>     Marc
>>
>>     On 6/24/2023 8:27 PM, Bernie Hellstrom via Personal_Submersibles
>>     wrote:
>>     > Many boat hulls were made with FC. Even the landing barges in
>>     the ww2 , to make piers to in load ships!
>>     >
>>     > Sent from my iPhone
>>     >
>>
>>
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>
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