DIVERS AND SUBMERSIBLES

Ron Martini's email address change to: rontini@bresnan.net

A Commerical submerisible company's page
Euro Submersible Program Submarine pageIn German
Commerical Diving Company in UK
New page by Navy on Submarine Rescue
Kokes Marine TechnologiesBuy or lease a ROV Submarine--43 foot, Diesel/Electric Powered Autonomous Research and Inspection Submarines
New Deep Hard Suits for Navy Divers
Submarine Builder PageNew on the net...Check them out.
A British Submarine Company
Another British Company
The Aluminaut Submersible at Virginia Musem.
Links to designing your own
Commercial sport and tourist UV site
Commercial Submersibles/Underwater Vehicles Inc
***A group of links provided by: Tony Fertitta
U-85 Page
Another U-85 page
Another U-85 Page
A U-85 Diving page
U-85 site also includes the boat's German Insignia, several b & w photos sent by an East German, and additional info provided by the German resident w/ a passion for researching this vessel.
U-352 Page
Another U-352 Page
Another U-352 Page
Another U-352 Page
Another U-352 Page
Diving the Bluegill

Scuba and the U85, U853, U352, USS Tarpon, USS Bass, USS Blenny, S-5

Rodale's On-Line Scuba Newsletter
Commercial French Research submarine firm.
USS O-9 Found Sonar images of the find.
James Hoot Andrews/Submariner/Seal3 years on the 598 then to SEAL Team Two.
Mark Devines Navy SEAL Page.
The U-166 in the Gulf Found
More on the U-166
Another U-166 Page
The Deep Submersible Nautile. A French page with photos on the "Titanic" finder.
The Nadir-Support Vessel for the Natile.
Oceanographic Ships of France.
French 3000 Meter Submersible Cyana
French 600 Meter-Griffon
Virginia Tech's Human Powered Submarine -ver.1997
Divers help needed at Narvik Norway. Many ships in this bay that Norway won't let divers explore.
UK Dive Directory.
DiveMall.Books, links, magazines.
FacePlate. US Navy's Diving and Salvage newsletter.
Dive Preserve U-1105 by state of Maryland.
DEEPSEA Group"Deep Shipwreck Explorers Association. With lot of links also.
Coronado Island Seal Member Home Page. Written by a former Navy Seal. Lots of links to the world of Seals.
Rebreather page. Prices, descriptions and pictures.
World Submarine Human Powered Invitational Results from 1996 race.
DiveWeb. A nice site that has the commercial interests at heart. They have a magazine on line, calendar, news, links, marketplace and more.
Treasure Quest Magazine.Description and subscription info only.
Salvage Links Page.
Autonomous System Labs A site at U of Hawaii that works with robotics and unmanned deep sea vehicles.
USN AUV Home Page.
Links to Underwater Robotic Labs.
Perry Tritect ROV Home Page.
Navy diver standing beside Flight 800 debris on the ocean floor.
The Odyssea Tourist Sub.
The Seaview Tourist Sub.
Unofficial US Navy Special Forces Archives. Another nice Seal page.
The Jason Project NR-1 Visit the worlds smallest nuclear submarine. Nice interior shots of this Deep Submergence vehicle.
Another gateway to the NR-!
Marine Watch Quarterly. A good source of diving news. The latest includes the article on the Japanese sub sunk in the Atlantic carrying gold to Germany. This sub found over 1 year ago.
GlobSub Co. A Finnish firm that make 5 models of submersibles.
C-Questor Sub Builders. A Canadian company that builds mini-subs. This page has pictures and a nice area for the kids.
Woods Hole Page.Recently updated
US Subs Inc. A company that makes tourist and specialty submarines. This site will improve its submarine information later with a newsletter and links to other submarine pages.
Autonomous UV site at NPS." Research into a great UV page a Naval Post Graduate School.
Diving Book. Review and information on a new scuba/diving book just published.
Captain Nemo's Diving Links. One of the better diving sites.
SS304 Attacks the Kitsugawa Maru! Read this great story about Lt Cdr Cutter's attack on a Japanese transport in 1944. A picture of the ship in 140' feet of water at Guam also included.
U-151 sinks 6 ships off East Coast! Dateline 6-2-1918. This from a New Jersey Scuba group who has explored the 6 vessels sunk by this submarine in WW1. This info is well researched and is a great story
U-85 Divers report..This German sub sunk off Carolina Outer Banks in 1942 by the USS Roper. Done by DC-Scuba club.
U 352 Dive Report.
Some photos of the 352 as she is now.
Scuba reports on USS Tarpon SS-175 (sunk while in tow to be scrapped and the U-352. Both off NC coast.
Some great photos of the Tarpon.
U-1105-Black Panther. Maryland's first historic shipwreck preserve gives information on this German WWII sunk sub and diving requirements, etc. In a recent USNI article, there has been damage done at the site and the theft of an artifact from this boat. This vessel, while managed by the state is Navy property and protected by federal laws.
More History of the U-1105.
Navy Seals Home Page.
Inshore UnderseaWarfare Group. Another Navy Seals Home Page.
Navy Seals Factfile from the Navy. Short page with some facts and several photos.
The NR1 page. The Jason project features the nuclear powered submersible/submarine NR1. This is a page you must visit.
Gordon Hawkes Deep Flight Project.And plans to get to 35,000'.
U of F Unmanned Underwater Veh. Soc.Not much here yet but great promise. However, they have the neatest Title screen of a submarine on the web.
Tenn. Tech Human Powered Vehicle Assoc. Pictures of their 4 submarines.
International Submarine Races Home Page.A history of human powered submarine event.
International Human Powered Vehicle Association.
Virginia Tech's Phantom Human-Powered Project. MPEG movies available of the Phantom.
Research submersibles Page.
Lockheed Martin's Deep Quest. 2 views of this famous research submarine.
The Deepest Diving Research Submarine. A picture only.
Hawaii's Yellow Submarine.A 48 passenger tourist submarine.
***Resurgam Story: The world's first mechanical submarine, invented by a Victorian cleric, is resting on the sea floor off Rhyl. Martin Wainwright meets the man about to raise Resurgam from its longest dive Curate's egg still good in parts In a matter of weeks, the barnacles and sea anemones of Rhyl are to lose their long monopoly of an extraordinary piece of British technology, the ineptly named Resurgam ("I shall rise again") - the world's first mechanically powered submarine. Shaped like a sharp-pointed egg, the 35 tons of corroded and long-sunk iron are expected to yield a clutch of significant lessons for archaeology, chemistry and - the grail of many of the assembling salvage team - perhaps an original Reverend Admiral Garrett Pasha pneumataphore. "He could have had one in the submarine . . . surely he would have," says the Resurgam's high priest William Scanlan Murphy, a Victorian-looking historian who has lived for years in the ghostly company of the craft and its strange inventor. Driven by 19th century vim and a highly original mind, Rev George Garrett, curate of Manchester's Moss Side and Admiral of the Turkish Navy, was not only the father of the working submarine. He was 40 years ahead of J B S Haldane in the creation of rescue breathing apparatus. "He was no clerical amateur," says Scanlan Murphy, conscious of the Church's long and eccentric interest in underwater travel. The celebrated 1901 Holland I submarine, now preserved at the Royal Naval Submarine Museum in Gosport, was designed by an Irish monk, John Holland. "Garrett's own interest started at Imperial College, which was then the national School of Chemistry and Mining," says Scanlan Murphy. "Breathing apparatus had its practical origins in the mines." The young student's enthusiasm led to his voluntary imprisonment in a sealed chamber, along with a candle, a bird, a guinea pig and a rabbit. He made accurate notes of the time it took for each to be (temporarily) snuffed out. Sepia prints, tracts and the original Ł1,500 bill for the Resurgam spill from Scanlan Murphy's suitcases and envelopes, bringing the rest of the odd world of Reverend Admiral Garrett alive. The same process is about to happen to his famous vessel. Lost in a storm off Rhyl in 1880, the Resurgam eluded amateur divers, scientists and Garrett's insurers until only two years ago, when a North Wales fisherman snagged the stumpy conning tower with his trawl net. Familiar treasure-hunting dramas have happened since - claims of rewards, fights between rivals in pubs, wreck-robbing and threats of writs. But the archaeological diving service at St Andrew's University's Scottish Institute for Maritime Studies is now plunging down for a "pre-disturbance survey". No one in the field doubts that Resurgam will resurface soon. "She was the first, and she's British - we ought to be able to admire her," says Ian Oxley of the diving unit, whose initial work will chart the damage of electro-chemical erosion from the sea's chloride and test how much is still going on. The divers will see the hull on her side, scabbed with barnacles, trailing weed from torn rivets, and with a lethal gash along the dented iron plates. The sub is thought to have been hit by an inshore cruiser in 1936, muddling her position even more than Rev Garrett's mendacious descriptions in 1880, which were probably intended to prevent discovery and the bankruptcy of his Submarine Navigation and Pneumataphore Company. "Look at her here, underwater," says Scanlan Murphy, pairing richly coloured contemporary pictures of the 60ft deep wreck with Monty Pythonesque studies of the curate inventor, immersed in water on a pneumataphore experiment. It is no surprise that Michael Palin has telephoned, enthusiastic to play the inventor in a film. He would be Garrett Pasha to the life. The clergyman's career leaves fiction trailing, from his pneumataphore demonstrations in Paris (standing on the bed of the Seine for four hours) to his Victorian father, a vicar who died in his pulpit while preaching a sermon on sudden death. Garrett himself was involved in espionage as well as Maxwellian business deals; photos taken with a concealed camera of his later, Turkish subs survive, although the Greek spy who took them did not; he was shot on discovery by the Turks. But this whacky side of Resurgam's history, which also includes an almost exact prediction of her location by the cutlery-bending metallurgist Uri Geller, does not hide the little ship's serious importance. Her salvage will test marine conservation to new limits. "The fate of the Holland has already put the Royal Navy Submarine Museum rather unwillingly at the cutting edge of underwater metallurgical research," says Scanlan Murphy. Briefly a star attraction after her rescue from the Eddystone reef in 1982, the largely steel sub is now immersed in 500 tonnes of sodium carbonate, to try to wash out the chloride that was turning her via chemical leprosy into "200 tonnes of extremely expensive rust." Resurgam's iron is softer and more vulnerable. "At the moment, she's in a relatively benign environment, stable and with low light levels. But you have to weigh that against the dangers of vandalism and damage from fishing trawls," says Scanlan Murphy. A raised Resurgam - the likeliest destination is the Warship Preservation Trust at Birkenhead, where the submarine was launched in 1880 at the Great Float - would also allow close inspection of her pioneering engines. A "closed steam" system, designed by Eugene Lamm in 1872 to use superheated water to provide four hours' sailing under steam without a furnace, it raised the internal temperature of the sub to 88°C. "Reports of her trials," says Scanlan Murphy, "suggest that the crew came out looking a very Naval shade of grey." Garrett's earliest, hand-cranked submarine was nicknamed the Curate's Egg because of its shape. Resurgam was more like a very expensive egg-poaching pan. And then there is the possible pneumataphore, a device that used caustic soda to "scrub" already-breathed air for limited re-use. Garrett was hugely ahead of his time with this, a method essentially the same as the computer-controlled rebreathers that are now allowing speleologists to travel further and further into previously impenetrable cave systems. Haldane's work in the 1920s was regarded as pioneering until the curate's American great-grandson produced a stack of papers in the late 1980s. The great-grandson, Bill Garrett, is a vice-president of Harley Davidson (Rev George died in penury in the US after his other four submarines all also sank), and has been a generous patron of Resurgam rescue attempts. He is likely to have the honour of squeezing first into the sub's cramped cab and hold, the likeliest places for pneumataphores (and, conceivably, Garrett's third invention, the steel-rimmed "self-defence mortarboard" patented for Irish dons faced with rebellious Fenian students) to be concealed. 09 April 1997 ***Here's an interesting story out of the UK: DUBLIN, March 9th: (AFP) A plan is being finalized to raise the first of 116 German U-boats scuttled more than 50 years ago off the northwest coast of Ireland, British company Masters Marine Salvage (MMS) which as been granted salvage rights to the submarine graveyard said here Sunday.
Commander Mark MacIntyre, managing director of MMS, said they hoped to begin work off County Donegal in mid-May in what will be the biggest salvage operation of its kind in the world in terms of volume. The company had planned to move on site during last year's summer "weather window" but only managed to survey the dive sites which stretch for about 150 miles northwest of Malin Head almost to the edge of the Continental Shelf. The submarines are at depths of 50to 200 metres (150 to 600 feet).
The British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary body has sought safety guarantees from the salvagers. A subcommittee report said there was no evidence that the raising of the U-boats would be a danger to the public. The company's team will largely be ex-British navy divers and they will be attempting to reverse the work of colleagues who scuttled the U-boats 52 years ago. They estimate the hulks will each contain recoverable metals. There is also a plan to preserve some of the most famous submarines for museums. About 100 of the submarines may be salvageable and the work may take up to eight years. The North Atlantic U-boat fleet surrendered to the allies and were assembled in Lough Foyle between Donegal and LondonDerry. They were sunk in "Operation Deadlight" in December, 1945. The original plan had been to town them out to the deep water Rockall Trench and scuttle them there. Bad weather disrupted the operation and many parted their tows and were sunk by gunfire rather than opening the seacocks and sinking them.