[PSUBS-MAILIST] Diesel Exhaust

Fri Oct 11 11:39:20 EDT 2013

James,

I think the diesel subs were mentioned in passing in George's autobiography, rather than in detail. They were K-subs, one 500-foot capable that went to Alaska for a recently retired super tanker Captain. He had another one (the third?) unfinished sitting in the weeds by the shop when I was last there which I half remember was a K-250.

All I really remember about that one is that the aft elliptical head was flanged and bolted to the hull cylinder for access to the diesel, and had the underwater exhaust like a WW II sub and a snorkel for the engine. That was going to be the Skipper's next personal sub, but he got sidetracked when he reacquired the K-600. He never finished the diesel sub that I know of, and I don't have any idea what happened to it in any case.

I do know that the family house and archives were donated to the Owl's Head township or the county historical society or somebody like that, and that something or other is on display up there. No idea where, but you might call the South Thomaston library, which is open part time and just down the street from the Kittredge house. They might know something about what went where, or provide a clue you could follow. I don't know what they ended up doing with the house itself, either. Maybe it's a museum now, too.

There is also a very nice transportation museum just up the road from George's house. (it might, in fact, be called the Owl's Head Transportation Museum, or something similar). Who knows? That little sub might have been painted up and put on display as a reminder of one of South Thomaston's most interesting and productive characters. Be a shame if it wasn't.

And if the diesel sub modifications could be unearthed, I'm sure they would be a welcome addition to the psubbers archives. There will be prints, somewhere. George did a lot of them himself, but surely they were saved, and having been saved, might be rescued from obscurity. If it costs a bit, let me know. I'll chip in just for general interest, and perhaps others would, too. Also, Jon had some of the last dealings up there, and might have an idea or two about how you (or we) could track things down.

Vance

-----Original Message-----
From: James Frankland <jamesf at guernseysubmarine.com>
To: Personal Submersibles General Discussion <personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
Sent: Fri, Oct 11, 2013 6:10 am
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Diesel Exhaust

Hi Greg\All,

Does anyone have any more info on Georges diesel subs?  I have his book and i dont recall any mention of them, though i could be mistaken, its a while since i read it.  I'd just be interested to see more info.  Were they K type designs?  Or something else?
Thanks
james

On 11 October 2013 13:03, greg cottrell <jgcottrell2002 at yahoo.com> wrote:

Captain Kittredge built a couple of diesel subs that worked very well. In his design, exhaust went straight down into the water at the bottom of the hull. The exhaust exit was directly behind what looked like a "v" shaped steel skeg that created a low pressure area when the sub was moving forward. The low pressure area reduced back pressure on the exhaust.

Incidentally, one of George's customers bought a diesel sub from him but took it down one time without closing the exhaust valve. Water entered one of the cylinders in the diesel and bent either the crank or the rods when he tried to start the engine.

Greg

From: Marc de Piolenc <piolenc at archivale.com>
To: personal_submersibles at psubs.org 
Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2013 10:15 PM
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Dive report - Pickles Reef

I've been following this discussion with great interest. I don't have a 
sub yet, but I do live in the Tropics, and as there's no cold current 
handy to where I live any subbing I do will be in water pretty near air 
temperature. As you might expect, I've given this problem a lot of thought.

My tentative conclusion is that, if I build a sub, I will have to make 
it more autonomous than is the rule on this list. Specifically, it will 
need a combustion engine to ferry itself on the surface to dive sites, 
and to maintain comfort and keep the battery topped off for diving while 
doing so. I started with the assumption that I would need an air 
conditioning unit running off a small industrial diesel, but then I 
realized that, if I use a snorkel exhausting into the cabin, and have 
the diesel draw air from the cabin, I get continuous renewal of the air 
in the cabin without the cost, power burden and safety problems of 
running a Rankine cycle refrigeration system. That's the solution that 
I've retained for the moment. Of course I also need a secure means of 
preventing exhaust gas from being aspirated into the snorkel (I can't 
quite understand how naval submarines manage to combine both functions 
in one mast), but that might be as simple as having the diesel exhaust 
flush with the hull, with some arrangement to prevent water from coming 
in. Since the diesel would only be used on the surface, and the snort 
would only be there to allow a low-freeboard hatch to be kept closed, 
the power penalty would be minimal.

Fuel storage, fuel feed and the like still have to be worked out. Naval 
submarines have very complex arrangements for this, and that complexity 
must be tolerated for a good reason. Even so, I need a simpler way to do 
it that still protects the fuel from contamination and me from asphyxiation.

Marc de Piolenc

On 10/11/2013 1:45 AM, Land N Sea wrote:
> I have been out of the loop for 5 weeks on the mainland on my sailboat
> and I should of read all the emails before responding when I got back. I
> did view the great footage and noticed that my tower looked a little
> taller (good for water ingress) and of course doesn’t have the dome so I
> hopefully won’t have quite as bad of a heat problem as one with the dome
> but I was thinking about Emile’s clear acrylic fairing as an option when
> I heard about the water egress problems with a three foot chop.
> It does get pretty hot here and we are about the same latitude as
> Florida so I will probably be trying Phil’s idea of the frozen pouches
> vest and or the gallon of frozen water and have the air coming out of my
> scrubber blowing against it.
-- 
Archivale catalog: http://www.archivale.com/catalog
Polymath weblog: http://www.archivale.com/weblog
Translations (ProZ profile): http://www.proz.com/profile/639380
Translations (BeWords profile): http://www.bewords.com/Marc-dePiolenc
Ducted fans: http://massflow.archivale.com/ 

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