Oceangate Sub Missing

bolted shut from the outside.

😱

People describe working at those depths as like going into space, and I think I’d prefer the latter!

If they survive Ron Howard will start negotiating rights for the movie next week.

One thing is for sure, money can also buy you a unique and memorable death.

Hedonistic adaptation is a killer.

The more I read about what it’s really like to be rich, the less I think I’d like it.

I worked on one of the submarine design and build programmes for a bit – maximum operating depth of 300m, with a level of engineering and complexity that is mind-boggling. Some of the ex-RN guys I worked with were technical advisors on the Kursk recovery. This thing is possibly at 3800m, over 1500km offshore with no tether or communications – it’s the proverbial needle in a haystack and even if they find it, there’s nothing available nearby to recover it. Local sea conditions are pretty rough – even on the surface it’s the last place you’d want to be pitching and rolling in a big tube 🤢

The more I read about what it’s really like to be rich, the less I think I’d like it.

Yep kind of get what you mean on this.

The bloke on TV this morning who went down in this sub bought it as a present for his wife. She only didnt go as she got COVID so he stepped in.

I wouldnt dream of buying this as a present for Mrs FD. If she wanted to really do it I would have a convo about it, but I wouldnt just buy it as a gift !

But then we all do stuff that could kill us any time.

Yes the bloke was on BBC Breakfast I’d recommend watching that bit (about 7:30?) he gives an insight into the waiver they had to sign mentioning death 3 times on the first of many pages. Some of the equipment failed like sonar they had trouble finding the Titanic wreck and were only saw it for about 20 minutes. I also read the controls are all touch screen / xbox something fails you can’t just get the spanners out. His wife was the adventurous one he tags along so he can be with her!

I wouldnt dream of buying this as a present for Mrs FD. If she wanted to really do it I would have a convo about it, but I wouldnt just buy it as a gift !

I bought MrsRNP a tandem skydive as a wedding present! I stayed firmly on the ground😁

Local sea conditions are pretty rough – even on the surface it’s the last place you’d want to be pitching and rolling in a big tube

Good point. Generally speaking people are saying their only survival chance is if they are floating. But, if 5 of them are being tossed around inside in swell, is that even survivable?

The fact that the hatch is bolted closed from the outside is a little surprising. Once you get past the first 10m or so the external pressure will hold the hatch shut pretty effectively so it doesn’t need to be clamped down hard, just enough so that you’re sure it’s got a positive seal.

My first assumption would be the hatch forms part of the structure once it’s bolted closed?

I am surprised that there isnt an emergency balloon that deploys and brings it back to the surface. Or is that the point that at that depth a balloon wouldnt inflate, or would just burst ?

When dealing with things below a ‘sensible’ depth you use diesel instead as it doesn’t compress as much so you get a consistent buoyancy the whole way to the surface. i.e. 1m3 of diesel in a 1m3 balloon is ~2500N of buoyancy regardless of depth. On the surface that would be ~250l of air, 250 (standard conditions)l of air at 4km is about a pint.

Ok i used to design pressure vessels. Ive done them at 1500bar with enough potential energy to take out Huddersfield

WEC?

[edit, that’s 1500psi not bar so not WEC]

is that even survivable?

I’m guessing you’d wish you were dead, at the very least.

Good point. Generally speaking people are saying their only survival chance is if they are floating. But, if 5 of them are being tossed around inside in swell, is that even survivable?

Probably not if they don’t have seats and harnesses.

re the cable/tether issue

Our stuff used to go to a maximum of 1500M

we would have a TMS (Tether Management System) which was basically a big metal cage with a drum of umbilical cable inside. you’d lower the TMS to your work area, and the ROV would then leave the TMS as the local umbilical is wound out and in. Just 1500m of Umbilical for a 150kg ROV and its TMS was a massive weight of cable, i get why untethered makes a little sense for this.

a sub wait 4000m of cable behind it wouldn’t be able to operate, it’d be pulled by the cable. it’d need its own TMS which would be enormous also i guess

The other thing is that they dress these trips up as research.

There is absolutely no need to send a manned sub to research the wreck.

It’s all about the adventure.

Ok i used to design pressure vessels. Ive done them at 1500bar with enough potential energy to take out Huddersfield

😀 I used to do low pressure vessels in Bradford, and the chemical energy if it went wrong was enough to take out Bradford… Nothing went wrong while i was there.

Ah just read that its a composite hull.

I wonder what their sign off criteria for the quality of the composite is. Any tiny flaw is going to become a massive issue at 400bar. The sort of faults your average aerospace quality carbon manufacturer doesn’t even look for are going to cause that thing to collapse like a coke can under a steam roller.

Going deep sea is harder than going to the moon apparently ?

Well, the upper and lower pressure limits are only 0 and 1 bar. So not that hard to make a pressure vessel to hold it all in/out. Also, most motion is based around moderately basic geometry. No pesky buoyancy/current/waves to worry about.

I also read the controls are all touch screen / xbox something fails you can’t just get the spanners out.

And if the coding is as janky as the rest of it, BSOD is not just words…

But, if 5 of them are being tossed around inside in swell, is that even survivable?

People sail and row across the Atlantic* in similar sized vessels so, yes it is/should be – it would be pretty unpleasant but survivable.

* The wavelength will be pretty big at that distance from shore which will be better – not like being in the Irish Sea with 6 footers coming at you every couple of seconds

People sail and row across the Atlantic* in similar sized vessels so, yes it is/should be – it would be pretty unpleasant but survivable.

But those are surface vessels with a keel and designed to bob about on the surface with a suitable CoG.

That sub looks like a tube that will be over the place.

But it looks so professionally fitted out on the inside…

You’re basically expensively viewing a shipwreck via a camera, same as you would be if you stayed on the surface. Except with the significant risk of being squashed like an ant, or dying of hypothermia/hypoxia.

Wouldn’t they have a GPS tracking system installed (with back-up!), so if it’s on the surface it should be easy to find?

Ok i used to design pressure vessels. Ive done them at 1500bar with enough potential energy to take out Huddersfield.

Missed opportunity…. 😉

Find it hard to feel sorry for those with enough cash to spunk on some vanity trip such as this. Would feel the same if the space tourists perished.

Maybe they need to update and add another verse to this:

Is that running Windows 10? I’m going to go with a forced update to 11 which bricked the drivers for the controller.

Just imagine being stuck in that thing watching your son die…glad I’m poor!

Wouldn’t they have a GPS tracking system installed (with back-up!), so if it’s on the surface it should be easy to find?

Looking at that photo I guess that would of kept hull penetrations to a minimum?

So they would have to have a sealed unit on the outside with some automatic activation system. Engineering something like that for 400 bar would be quite tricky!

Find it hard to feel sorry for those with enough cash to spunk on some vanity trip such as this. Would feel the same if the space tourists perished.

That’s very harsh. They are actual real living people with friends and families and stuff – being rich and being able to afford such trips shouldn’t exclude them from our thoughts and sympathy.

We used to frequently be asked on here, ‘what’s the last thing to go throught a fly’s brain when it hits the windscreeen?’ Does make you wonder.

Find it hard to feel sorry for those with enough cash to spunk on some vanity trip such as this. Would feel the same if the space tourists perished.

They are just normal people who have don well out of life, dont begrudge other peoples wealth, although it does appear to be quite a common thing to do on STW.

I think the point above about what people who have larges sums of spare cash choose to spend it on is questionable, but they are just normal people like you or I, they were born the same as you or I and will die at some point too, sooner rather than later unfortunately it looks like for them

Looking at those pics, did they even get put in the water? ie simple way to make loads of dosh. Lock people in a tin can with no windows, winch them up in the air, move them around a bit and then turn a DVD on of shots of the Titanic 🙂 they would never know

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes…

The amount of resources spent on trying to find these idiots will be staggering. I hope they or the relatives are charged for the operation given the predicament they find themselves in is entirely of their own doing

i really hope they are found alive, but with all the suffering that goes on in the world due to poverty, I’m struggling to muster much sympathy for a group of exceedingly rich people who have spent the best part of a million quid between them on a jolly which lets face it, most sane people would give a hard pass

probably an unpopular view, but hey ho

Looking at those photos, that must be the cheapest way to get a camera down to 4000m.

A simple, cheap surface ship. No need for DP or a large crane as the sub is made of kevlar not steel.

A very simple sub made on a budget.

That’s how they only charge $250,000 per person for a 9 day trip.

So there is no physical port hole and all of the viewing will be via CCTV? What is the point of going?

Another member of the Marine Engineering/Pressure systems community here –

There is a very good reason why we’re only allowed to build pressure vessels using traceable materials with the correct certifications, and this is for refrigeration and water systems running at <20BarG.

The more I read about this the more i’m relieved I don’t have the money to contemplate doing things like this.

Sadly i think there is no way they are going to walk away from this.

re the money vs risk bit..

we are all riding around on bikes that are worth more than a lot of peoples cars, and we choose to chuck ourselves off stuff that can end in injury or death.

its the same thing, slightly different scale.

you interperate the risk in your own way

i see my hobby as being relatively low risk, based on where I’m riding and my ability. What if the the tourists were told there had been 100 successful missions, then you could argue there’s 1% risk.. (i don’ know the figures, probably much less successful trips). At the end of the day, you want to sell the safety of your service., even though you sign a waiver for your life (don’t we do the same at bike parks?)

That’s how they only charge $250,000 per person for a 9 day trip.

I hope that the catering is up to scratch for that sort of money! But I suspect that all the rich and farty food will be for the return trip once they are out of the can.

There is a small portal, this is from the chap on BBC Breakfast this morning;

But those are surface vessels with a keel and designed to bob about on the surface with a suitable CoG.

Rowing boats generally don’t have much of a keel and definitely have been know to do 360 rolls. A yachts keel is mostly to counteract the force of the rig (which this does not have) – and to convert the sideways force into forward motion.

This sub is powered by a lot of batteries – even though it’s made of CF and titanium it still weighs 10 tons – and they will all be stored in the bottom forming a keel of sorts.  So i doubt it’s going to spin around like a cigar tube.

I am surprised that there isnt an emergency balloon that deploys

Wouldn’t they have a GPS tracking system installed (with back-up!), so if it’s on the surface it should be easy to find?

It turns out that the sub has been lost before ( for 5 hours) and they discussed putting a beacon on it…But didn’t in the end.

They are were actual real living people with friends and families and stuff

There is some serious knowledge on display in this thread, really fascinating insights. Thanks.

How many lives do you have to rough over and how much of other’s labour do you need to exploit to become a billionaire? It’s not come out of his post office savings book. Can’t say they’d get much sympathy around here.

I hope they’re found, but it looks unlikely given the numerous failure modes. At least a crushed hull would be fast. I wonder about the declaimer and insurance, because the potential for killing billionaires is not a sensible business model. one presumes that working in international waters gives them some legal freedoms from conventional vessel regulation?