<div style="color:black;font: 12pt Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Very cool. And I'm pretty sure George thought the Norwegian owners were dreaming. Their idea was to put a sub on every rig complex in the North Sea, and operate them with only small boats for comms and support. They could have asked me. I'd have told them a little about winter gales and 5-8 meter seas. Aside from a bad idea at the start, what really happened was that ROV technology caught up. The oil companies and engineers liked people in subs, but the lawyers and insurance companies did not. George had a heck of a time reacquiring the 600. It got hung up in legalese in Norway and was going to be junked, or just stuck in a corner somewhere and forgotten. It was and is (arguably) the nicest sub George ever built, so I was happy to see it saved, and very pleased indeed when you snagged it.
<div>Vance<br>
<br>
<br>
<div style="font-family:helvetica,arial;font-size:10pt;color:black">-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Jon Wallace via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles@psubs.org><br>
To: Personal Submersibles General Discussion <personal_submersibles@psubs.org><br>
Sent: Thu, Jun 18, 2020 9:25 am<br>
Subject: Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] publicity<br>
<br>
<div id="yiv8821793397">
<div>
<div class="yiv8821793397moz-cite-prefix"><br clear="none">
</div>
<div class="yiv8821793397moz-cite-prefix">Nice history lesson Vance. We need you
to write a book. Regarding K600, it was tested to 380 psi at
Annapolis, so 850-877 feet depending upon salt or fresh water.
I've got the placards that were attached to the sub, a photo of
them at SUBDB.INFO. Easy to understand why George felt he could
get to 900+ feet with it. I've got all the documentation
regarding the K600 build including calcs, notes, and
communications. My impression is that the K600 fabrication ended
with lots of animosity between Kittredge and the buyer, both not
trusting the other. Kittredge was suppose to build additional
K600's for the company but because of their mutual "issues", both
parties agreed to end their business agreement and so only one was
ever built. I know that the engineer for the company required
Kittredge to install thicker end caps, and also required thru-hull
penetrator cables for main batteries rather than the K-350
design. I've got the invoice as well, final cost of the certified
K600 in 1979 was $101,000.</div>
<div class="yiv8821793397moz-cite-prefix"><br clear="none">
</div>
<div class="yiv8821793397moz-cite-prefix">Jon<br clear="none">
</div>
<div class="yiv8821793397moz-cite-prefix"><br clear="none">
</div>
<div class="yiv8821793397moz-cite-prefix"><br clear="none">
</div>
<div class="yiv8821793397yqt3571202470" id="yiv8821793397yqtfd20342">
<div class="yiv8821793397moz-cite-prefix">On 6/17/2020 2:15 PM, via
Personal_Submersibles wrote:<br clear="none">
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
</blockquote></div>
</div>
<div class="yiv8821793397yqt3571202470" id="yiv8821793397yqtfd32111">
<div>
<div style="color:black;font:12pt Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">True
in parts. George tested an early K-250 in the Navy test tank in
Annapolis. His buddy the Admiral was a structural design
engineer of Navy subs, and had done the figures on the little
sub's hull. The boys at the shop in Maryland didn't take them
seriously. They figured the whole thing would implode at about
twenty feet. George knew better. He told them the first thing to
go would be the acrylic dome, and he figured that would happen
at 800 feet or thereabouts. Which is exactly what happened.
After the factory was built in Maine and he started on K-350s,
he bought some 5' hemispheres and planned to build his own tank
test facility for the shop. This was never completed. Almost
every sub was drop tested in a 500 foot hole off the mouth of
the Weskeag River. A couple of them were built for operatibns to
500 feet, and were tested in deeper water out in Penobscot Bay.
The K-600 was built to Lloyd's spec had to be tank tested with
an inspector present. So, back to Annapolis. I think they tested
it to 750 feet per Lloyd's instructions for certification to 600
feet. Later on, George reacquired the K600 and was on board with
some other guys to buy a boat and take the whole package to
Columbia for a treasure hunt in 900 feet of water. He was
confident the 600 would do that handily. They actually bought
the old Coast Guard coastal tug the 'Snohomish', but the
Colombians ended up saying sure, you can dive for treasure, but
whatever you find belongs to the Colombian people, and you have
to give it all to us. Which pretty much killed the profit margin
on that particular pipe dream. If that hadn't happened, the K600
would have become a K900. Or so the story goes. Then George and
I collaborated on the design for a K1000. I've got the initial
prints, but that one was never built, either. Too bad.
<div><br clear="none">
<div>Vance<br clear="none">
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br clear="none">
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="yqt3571202470" id="yqtfd37863">_______________________________________________<br clear="none">Personal_Submersibles mailing list<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:Personal_Submersibles@psubs.org" href="mailto:Personal_Submersibles@psubs.org">Personal_Submersibles@psubs.org</a><br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="http://www.psubs.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/personal_submersibles" target="_blank">http://www.psubs.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/personal_submersibles</a><br clear="none"></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>