[PSUBS-MAILIST] Pilot fish first dives

Wed Apr 13 06:03:27 EDT 2016

thanks Alan,

currents are too strong to arrive in Cherbourg, however I would love to
have the sub shown at the museum there after the trip. There were ok for a
temporary exhibit with little conference but I probably need to ask them
again.

regards
Antoine

On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 12:25 AM, Alan James via Personal_Submersibles <
personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:

> Wow, fantastic Antoine, congratulations.
> Love those detailed reports with the good & the bad.
> Emile was the right person to have on the project, he thinks outside the
> box.
> The speed you are getting is faster than I thought.
> Did you consider crossing to Cherbourg (like the Titanic) & getting the
> submarine museum involved
> or are the currents too strong up there?
> Cheers Alan
> P.S.
> In case anyone misses it, this TV news item from your facebook page is
> very good.
> Le Journal du week-end - Inspirés de Tintin, ils vont traverser La Manche
> en pédalant dans un sous-marin
> <http://lci.tf1.fr/jt-we/videos/2016/inspires-de-tintin-ils-vont-traverser-la-manche-en-pedalant-dans-8731854.html>
>
> Le Journal du week-end - Inspirés de Tintin, ils vont traverser La Manche
> e...
> Traverser La Manche à 2 km/h à l'aide de leurs mollets, c'est le projet
> fou de deux polytechniciens. Dès...
>
> <http://lci.tf1.fr/jt-we/videos/2016/inspires-de-tintin-ils-vont-traverser-la-manche-en-pedalant-dans-8731854.html>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Antoine Delafargue via Personal_Submersibles <
> personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
> *To:* Personal Submersibles General Discussion <
> personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, April 13, 2016 9:27 AM
> *Subject:* [PSUBS-MAILIST] Pilot fish first dives
>
> Hello Psubbers,
> Pilot Fish sub has now made its first dives,
> What a feeling to live this for real after having imagined it for years!
> seeing the water fully covering the dome is quite a dramatic view.
>
> at last i feel like a real psubber, after having been on this group
> feeling like a junior kid for ten years... thanks to you all, this project
> would not be anywhere near it is without your precious advice!
>
> some pics and movies can be found at
>
> https://www.facebook.com/Projet-Poisson-Pilote-Pilot-Fish-Project-294329844027226/
>
> The tests went well overall. we were quite anxious as there were many
> systems to be tested, some with quite original features. Launching the sub
> with the trailer and an extension rope was the first unknown. Hopefully
> Emile came from Amsterdam to help us out. Techno diving lent us some diver
> phones, and the local dive club helped out which is good for a first dive.
>
> First day we stayed in the harbour checking buoyancy. We were a bit
> heavier and nose heavy than anticipated, so we adjusted for this by
> removing some solid ballast. We had also a bit of air exiting our emergency
> regulators so we figured we should add an isolation valve upstream that
> regulator to prevent such events increasing the pressure of the cabin.
> once MBT emptied we tried bringing in water into our bladder to be
> neutral, but I soon realized I had forgotten to remove a little plastic cap
> protecting the threaded seawater intake outside when prepping the sub. It
> would be a hard reach to remove even by a diver from outside as it was
> located inside the tail fairing between oxy bottles.
> All the tv crews were also there waiting to film our first dive..., we had
> like 4 go pros and 2 microphones inside the sub recording, and diver cam
> man, a towing boat in a small harbour trying to keep us away from other
> boats, some people watching, and for whatever reason I wanted to control
> most of the tasks inside the sub, leaving michael my copilot only pedaling.
> So quite a lot of multitasking for a first dive! I would advise to do first
> dives in a quiet place first!
> After thinking hard about whether the cap was threaded or not, we decided
> we should try pumping against it with our manual bilge pump. It did not
> work initially as our low pressure circuit was full with air so the pumping
> was not very efficient. So we poured water from our drinking bottle into it
> and pumped again and this time when reversing the circuit, water came in so
> we had managed to kick the cap out and we finally started diving. By the
> way, this was the very first time we tested our bilge pump, and it visibly
> worked...
> Having done already several cycles of ballast inflation to adjust solid
> ballast we did not have enough air to exit the harbour in confidence
> (although we had plumbed our ballasts to allow divers to inflate our
> ballasts with direct system connection, which turned out quite useful). so
> we stayed in, only diving to 1m as the bottom 2m of the lake harbour were
> covered by very long sea weed on which we were sort of floating.
>
> The next day we went out for a tow then dives in 3 to 5 m water depth. We
> could then check most systems, which worked as anticipated. the task
> sharing with the pedaller became obvious: pedaller pedals, and takes care
> of life support and MBT upon instruction from the pilot, the pilot does the
> rest. We would deflate the ballasts, which turned out quite stable despite
> the saddle shape. Then we would bring in seawater to fully cover the dome
> to get neutral buoyancy, then pedal downwards, using the trim tray on
> rollers beneath the pilot seat. The first surfacing with Emile as a pilot
> was quite impressive by inflating the ballasts. Nobody filmed it but it
> felt like we raced upwards with steep inclination.
> We did another dive with Michael on the same day. We could check oxy
> consumption, really sober, 0.75L/mn at rest for us two, and 2L/mn at
> cruising pedaling level. The temperature and humidity did not shoot up as
> we feared when pedalling to the sweating remained quite efficient and
> confortable, despite all the body heat. Quite happy too with the scrubber
> as we had 0.15-0.2 % CO2 only.
>  Pedaling resistance lower than feared, we ll see next time if we try a
> more agressive pitch. Our blade design may be a bit basic but the speed
> looked around the 3km/hr expected. The friction in the drive train and prop
> shaft seal is impressively low. we can testify that the water lubricated
> bearing for the shaft outside the hull works well when in the water...
> During that second dive  a funny thing happened: we beached on the seabed
> without noticing, as the seabed was moving up, and did not have the
> altitude sounder installed yet and the ground felt further below due to
> optical distortion in the dome. Then we used the bow thruster  which sucked
> sand inside the bow fairing (I had not cut the definitive thruster intake
> ports in the fairing) which kept us landed. We kept pedalling without
> understanding why we stopped moving, thinking we may have got caught in
> something or the prop blades may have loosened?. That was when the surface
> boat told us they had an engine pb so we came up gently with ballasts and
> the diver told us we had landed and was wondering why we kept pedalling!!
>
> We will do another series to check the speed accurately in deeper water
> depth area. we will also do longer dives to check the scrubber capacity,
> and if all goes well spend the night underwater for a 30hours long dive.
>
> regards,
> Antoine
>
>
>
>
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