day-to-day duties depend on the complexity 

 of the vehicle and its support system. More 

 or less typical of the mid-range vehicles is 

 ALVIN, whose shore-based support personnel 

 are: A Quality Control Engineer, Chief 

 Draftsman, Draftsman, Secretary, Instru- 

 ment Engineer, Mechanical Engineer, Engi- 

 neering Technician and Structural Engineer. 



The background of submersible operators 

 or pilots and support personnel is varied. By 

 and large, most pilots are ex-Navy personnel 

 with submarine experience, but this is not a 

 requirement; for example, of DEEPSTAR 

 4000^s four pilots, only one was an ex-sub- 

 mariner. Of the remaining three, one was a 

 naval aviator, one a civilian draftsman with 

 extensive scuba experience and one a civil- 

 ian diver/photographer. On the other hand, 

 DEEP QUESTS submersible pilots and crew 

 are almost solidly of Naval background. 



Versatility is one aspect common to all 

 backgrounds, for in many instances an engi- 

 neer or pilot may be required variously, to: 

 Don scuba tanks to inspect or help repair the 

 submersible, handle a line during the launch/ 

 retrieval or bear a hand in loading supplies 

 on the support ship or submersible. In es- 

 sence, a member of a submersible's support 

 crew must be specialist, generalist and ordi- 

 nary seaman, and the smaller the submers- 

 ible, the wider the range of individual duties. 

 There can be no prima donnas in a submers- 

 ible crew. 



Facilities ashore to support the submers- 

 ible range from garage-size to hangar-size. 

 Within this range is a wide variety of capa- 

 bilities with none individually being repre- 

 sentative of the community in general. 



Quite naturally, the more transportable 

 (smaller) the submersible, the farther away 

 from a dockyard or pier it may be. Submers- 

 ibles of the NEKTON class are trailer-trans- 

 ported to their shop. Large submersibles, 

 such as DEEP QUEST, are generally based 

 on the water front where a marine railway is 

 available to haul the vehicle to and from its 

 shop. 



A submersible as large and sophisticated 

 as DEEP QUEST requires considerable 

 shore-based support. The San Diego, Cal., 

 shore base includes a 165-foot pier, marine 

 railway (70-ton capacity), waterfront ramp 

 area and a building housing offices, shops, 



equipment and maintenance area. The latter 

 includes electronics, electrical, hydraulic and 

 diver equipment shops. 



On the other hand, SEA OTTEWs home 

 base is several blocks from the waterfront 

 and consists of one large room (shop) and a 

 small office. 



The majority of submersible operations 

 have been conducted in temperate and tropi- 

 cal latitudes. Only a few have taken place in 

 the Arctic. The only problems unique to the 

 tropics are the obvious ones of heat and 

 humidity; for this reason an air conditioning 

 unit is used to blow air into the pressure hull 

 while the vehicle is being worked over 

 aboard its mother ship. When operating on 

 the surface or in shallow water the heat and 

 humidity can become unduly oppressive in a 

 very short time, for it is assisted by heat 

 generated by electric equipment in the pres- 

 sure sphere. Even so the tropics and sub- 

 tropics are far more benevolent than are the 

 high latitudes. 



Arctic operations are controlled by 

 weather, temperature and ice. Diving under 

 an ice cover is risky business in a short- 

 duration submersible with no accurate and 

 reliable means of navigation and any num- 

 ber of potential failure areas. Hence, the 

 majority of such dives proceed with a line 

 attached to the vehicle to retrieve it in the 

 event of a breakdown or navigation error. 

 Obviously, the vehicle must be in a heated 

 shelter aboard ship in order to perform rou- 

 tine maintenance. 



Most cold weather problems with submers- 

 ibles are predictable, but one that was not 

 was the 0-ring viewport seals on DEEP DI- 

 VER working in the Aleutian Islands in 1972. 

 During each dive seawater would collect be- 

 tween the viewport and its metal insert and 

 freeze when DEEP DIVER was retrieved; 

 the 0-ring would freeze solid on exposure to 

 the air. When the submersible was placed 

 back in the water the ice melted, but the O- 

 ring remained contracted and inflexible. 

 Consequently water leaked into the pressure 

 hull between the viewport and its housing. 

 This required retrieving the vehicle, remov- 

 ing each viewport and wiping the housing 

 dry. Subsequently the neoprene 0-rings were 

 replaced with silicon 0-rings which solved 

 the problem. 



619 



