[PSUBS-MAILIST] G.L. Submersible Classification

[Jon Wallace]

Agreed, certification for home-built personal use submarines are a 
luxury.  For commercial passenger transport in the US, the Coast Guard 
is going to require certification.  The only other reason it might be 
warranted is for commercial diving work where the client requires you to 
have liability insurance because they want your insurance to cover any 
claims that might arise due to the work you perform, and/or don't want a 
claim against them for any work injuries you might incur.  I'm not 
convinced a non-certified sub is unable to get insurance for all 
possible work.  A few years ago there was an marine insurance company 
representative at Underwater Intervention whom I talked about regarding 
liability insurance for a non-certified home-built submarine.  While 
expensive, it was not unobtainable.  Are you going to need certification 
to get hired by an oil company to support underwater ops on an offshore 
drilling platform...probably.  Are you going to need certification to 
get hired to do three days worth of underwater inspections of boat piers 
for a private local boat yard...probably not.  In my opinion 
certification does add value to a personal-use submarine but whether 
that value is actually realized financially cannot be guaranteed.  When 
someone is considering certification you can safely assume they are one 
or more of; (a) planning on selling/marketing to the public; (b) 
planning on commercial passenger transport; (c) planning on serious 
commercial work.

Given the estimated cost of certification we have seen so far ($50-60k 
US) it's easy to understand why we in the personal use market do not 
want government intervention forcing certification upon all vessels 
regardless of use.  This is one reason self-enforcement of safe design, 
fabrication, and operations is important and why PSUBS has pushed design 
and fabrication in accordance with guidelines of certifying agencies.

We should also recognize that there's no restriction on PSUBS becoming 
its own certifying authority and serving the home-built market.  Such a 
CA would not go to the extent of requiring x-ray reading of welds but 
could act to confirm basic design parameters, equipment, and 
documentation based upon what the owner/designer presented.  It wouldn't 
hold the stature of an ABS or GL rating, nor be feasible for passenger 
based operations, but may help with finding insurance and some types of 
work once we built it (over time) into an accepted certificate.

Hank's words that a very good and safe sub can be unremarkable and built 
to ABS (or other CA) specs are exactly right.  Phil Nuytten essentially 
said the same thing at the 2009 convention, I believe his exact quote 
was, "this stuff isn't rocket science".

Jon


On 11/27/2013 8:20 AM, hank pronk wrote:
>
> I can not see a real benefit to having a certification for  
> average home built sub.  On the other hand we should stay as close to 
> or right on the guidelines set by the certification process.  When I 
> took Gamma apart I was amazed at how unremarkable things are.  Maybe 
> the guidelines are more advanced since 1993 but it is not out of this 
> world to build to ABS specs.  Because I have all the drawings and 
> documentation it would be nice to certify Gamma again but my windows 
> do not conform to todays standards.  We as average Home  sub builders 
> should keep our projects as unremarkable and simple as possible to 
> keep them safe.  Remember, test, test, and test again.  Then when your 
> completely happy with it, test it again.
> Hank
>

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