<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"></head><body ><div>Dan and Al,</div><div>I will be going to Lake Seneca later this year once things calm down at work. I really hated missing this dive with Alec. I will keep everyone posted when I will plan to go.</div><div>Thanks,</div><div>Scott Waters</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div style="font-size:9px;color:#575757">Sent from my U.S. Cellular® Smartphone</div></div><div></div><br><br>-------- Original message --------<br>From: Dan Hryhorcoff via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles@psubs.org> <br>Date:06/06/2015 8:58 PM (GMT-06:00) <br>To: Personal Submersibles General Discussion <personal_submersibles@psubs.org> <br>Cc: <br>Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Dive report: Snoopy at Seneca <br><br>Yep, Al has the boat and he has experience too. Experience in the deep <br>water testing operation, and experience in hauling up hand over hand from <br>more feet then he or I would like to do again.<br><br>Seneca Lake in New York state is a great place to dive. Deep and clear with <br>a great ramp on the southern end. It's only a few miles off the ramp to get <br>to five hundred feet of depth.<br><br>Great report Alec, Seneca lake is so deep that the water doesn't seem to <br>mix up much. What's at the bottom and cold, stays down there. Probably the <br>biggest drawback to that lake is that it's quite cold year around.<br>If you have plans to get up there again let me know. Maybe I'll head up <br>that way.<br><br>Dan H.<br><br>-----Original Message----- <br>From: Al Secor via Personal_Submersibles<br>Sent: Friday, June 05, 2015 11:28 PM<br>To: Personal Submersibles General Discussion<br>Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Dive report: Snoopy at Seneca<br><br>Tim,<br><br>It's basically a 20' 150 hp outboard...good for towing the sub out to the <br>dive site. I have 2 other larger boats but they aren't as easily towed on <br>the highway.<br>I provided support for Persistence, Dan H's K-350 sub when we did the deep <br>test for that.<br><br>Al Secor<br><br>--------------------------------------------<br>On Fri, 6/5/15, T Novak via Personal_Submersibles <br><personal_submersibles@psubs.org> wrote:<br><br>Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Dive report: Snoopy at Seneca<br>To: "'Personal Submersibles General Discussion'" <br><personal_submersibles@psubs.org><br>Date: Friday, June 5, 2015, 11:11 PM<br><br>What kind of surface<br>support boat do you have, Al? Could you post a photo?<br>Tim<br><br>-----Original Message-----<br>From: Personal_Submersibles [mailto:personal_submersibles-bounces@psubs.org]<br>On Behalf Of Al Secor via<br>Personal_Submersibles<br>Sent: June-05-15 7:19<br>PM<br>To: Personal Submersibles General<br>Discussion<br>Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Dive<br>report: Snoopy at Seneca<br><br>FWIW, my boat is available for any surface<br>support for deep tests and I can<br>also<br>provide guidance to local wrecks in Seneca if anyone else<br>is<br>interested.<br>I also have a<br>scuba compressor for air fills.<br><br>Al Secor<br><br>--------------------------------------------<br>On Fri, 6/5/15, swaters@waters-ks.com<br>via Personal_Submersibles<br><personal_submersibles@psubs.org><br>wrote:<br><br> Subject: Re:<br>[PSUBS-MAILIST] Dive report: Snoopy at Seneca<br> To: "Personal Submersibles General<br>Discussion"<br><personal_submersibles@psubs.org><br> Date: Friday, June 5, 2015, 9:20 PM<br><br> Alec,So<br><br>cool. I wish I could of made it! Can't wait to see the<br>video.Thanks,Scott<br>Waters<br><br><br> Sent from my U.S.<br><br>Cellular® Smartphone<br><br><br>-------- Original message<br> --------<br> From: Alec Smyth via<br><br>Personal_Submersibles<br> <personal_submersibles@psubs.org><br> Date:06/05/2015 5:16 PM (GMT-06:00)<br> To: Personal Submersibles General<br>Discussion<br><personal_submersibles@psubs.org><br> Cc:<br><br><br>Subject: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Dive report:<br><br>Snoopy at Seneca<br><br><br>Hello<br> friends,<br> I just got<br>back<br> from a dive trip to Seneca with Dan<br>Lance and thought I'd share how it<br>went. This was supposed to be a two sub trip<br>with Scott Waters, but<br>unfortunately a<br>business emergency intervened and it ended up being<br>just<br>Snoopy.<br> On the way<br>up<br> the weather was terrible, with driving<br>rain so heavy I could barely see<br>the lines<br>on the road. It had been raining heavily for several<br>days<br>previously. Three times there were<br>emergency announcements about floods,<br>large<br>hail, and damaging winds, and the closer I got the harder<br>it rained.<br> The problem with all that rain<br>is that in your typical lake, the runoff<br>ruins visibility for weeks. That is what<br>happened last year when<br>Trustworthy and<br>Snoopy rendezvoused at Summersville Lake, and it looked<br>very much like this would be a repeat.<br>I'm happy to say Seneca must be<br>rain-proof, because the deluge only reduced<br>the visibility in the top<br>fifty feet or so,<br>and even those were clearer than most lakes.<br> Here's a<br> few things we<br>learned:<br> 1) Of props and<br><br>shroudsThe stern thruster speed control was dead on<br>arrival, although I<br>had tested it<br>successfully before leaving. I opened up the enclosure,<br>pressed down all the spade connectors, and<br>found it now worked - so<br>attributed the<br>issue to road bumps. However, it died within a minute on<br>the first dive. I had a spare speed controller,<br>so switched it out. The<br>replacement died<br>within five minutes on the second dive.<br><br>This time at least the cause was obvious, the prop was<br>jammed by weeds.<br>The current Minnkota props<br>have a little twist at the end of the blades,<br>and Snoopy's shroud is made with almost<br>no clearance. The little twist to<br>the<br>blade tip causes any object coming between prop and shroud<br>to jam<br>tight, and had already smoked one<br>controller during the convention in the<br>Keys. I'm going to put the prop on the<br>lathe and take off the tips to<br>eliminate the<br>pinching effect and to reduce the amperage draw a little<br>so<br>the motor goes lighter on the speed<br>controller. By the way, the speed<br>controller<br>was protected by a fuse rated a little below the<br>controller spec<br>current draw, so perhaps<br>those specs are optimistic. Anyway, as a result of<br>the double failure all of our dives were done<br>on just the side thrusters<br>because I was<br>out of spare speed controllers. Lesson for next sub:<br>Design<br>the electrical system with a<br>controller bypass, so I can operate thrusters<br>with simple on/off switches if a speed<br>controller fails. They're<br>electronic,<br>they will fail.<br> 2) Of air<br> bubbles in compensation oil<br><br>Snoopy is now routinely diving deep<br> (250<br>ft) and this has showed up a puzzling issue with the<br>thrusters. They<br>were feeble during dives,<br>one died altogether on one dive, and they kept<br>coming up leaking oil.<br> At<br>first we thought the seals were failing, perhaps due to<br>some chemical<br>incompatibility. We found<br>suitable seals at an Amish farm supply store that<br>sold things like tractor spares (viva<br>trolling motor simplicity!) When I<br>disconnected the bladder hose I got quite<br>well sprayed with oil. The motor<br>turned out<br>to be pressurized. Previously, I thought if one had a<br>small<br>quantity of air left in the system it<br>would not be an issue so long as the<br>compression volume of that air could be<br>handled by the flexibility of the<br>hose (aka<br>compensation<br> bladder.) Wrong. I now think<br>what happens is that if the dive exceeds the<br>pressure rating of the shaft seal and there<br>is a bubble of any size, you<br>will get water<br>added to the oil and the bubble stores the pressure.<br>Upon<br>surfacing, the bubble squeezes oil<br>and water back out until the pressure<br>in<br>the motor falls to the "cracking pressure" of<br>the seal. Thus, you get an<br>oil leak even<br>though the seals are fine. Lesson: Zero tolerance with<br>oil<br>bubbles, even a small bubble is<br>unacceptable if you are diving deep. I'm<br>going to put set screws on the motor caps so<br>I can get rid of the bubbles<br>more<br>easily.<br> 3) An easy way<br> to<br>add buoyancySnoopy's buoyancy is adjusted by placing<br>trawl floats in<br>PVC tubes. On one occasion,<br>the oncoming passenger's weight required the<br>addition of just one float (i.e. the new guy<br>weighed seven pounds more<br>than the one<br>getting off). The support diver wasn't suited up and<br>the water<br>was 42 degrees, so I just pushed<br>a float under the lip of the forward MBT.<br>It worked like a charm, and the float even<br>stayed in place throughout the<br>tow back to<br>the ramp. Lesson: You can easily add a few floats for<br>buoyancy<br>on a standard K sub, no special<br>tubes required.<br> Most of our<br> dives were along a very steep incline, not<br>quite a wall but more like a<br>series of<br>ledges and very steep slopes. Between the steep terrain<br>and the<br>good visibility, the K250 dome for<br>once offered a really good view. We<br>typically made our way down the slopes using<br>very slightly negative<br>buoyancy, trailing<br>the back corner of a skid on the slope. Looking aft,<br>you could see a zigzagging trail of silt<br>hanging motionless in the water<br>and<br>tracing our path. The sub compresses with depth, so<br>slightly positive<br>buoyancy at the surface<br>turned into slightly negative at depth, but we're<br>speaking of just a couple of pounds and not<br>anything that caused<br>difficulty. In fact at<br>one point we stopped dead in the water four or five<br>feet above a flat bottom for about five<br>minutes, just waiting for a<br>pre-arranged<br>touch-point call on comms. The sub didn't rise or sink<br>an<br>inch, she just hung there completely<br>immobile for five minutes. At about<br>140 feet<br>the visibility would improve significantly, and the water<br>changed<br>from green to blue. It looked like<br>ocean instead of lake water.<br> I'll post<br>a video, but that'll take a few days to put together.<br>The only<br>"incidents" we had were<br>a cold bath we took when we closed the hatch over a<br>corner of the crew's shirt, and when we<br>got hooked on a log at 220 feet -<br>fortunately reversing got us right off it.<br><br> Best,<br><br>Alec<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> -----Inline Attachment Follows-----<br><br><br>_______________________________________________<br> Personal_Submersibles mailing list<br> Personal_Submersibles@psubs.org<br> http://www.psubs.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/personal_submersibles<br><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Personal_Submersibles mailing list<br>Personal_Submersibles@psubs.org<br>http://www.psubs.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/personal_submersibles<br><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Personal_Submersibles mailing list<br>Personal_Submersibles@psubs.org<br>http://www.psubs.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/personal_submersibles<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Personal_Submersibles mailing list<br>Personal_Submersibles@psubs.org<br>http://www.psubs.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/personal_submersibles <br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Personal_Submersibles mailing list<br>Personal_Submersibles@psubs.org<br>http://www.psubs.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/personal_submersibles<br><br></body></html>