Mercury Spill

Mercury Spill

We were working in Bermuda, tied up to the dock in St. Georges. It was the end of a long day of problem solving, working out some mechanical issues on the sub. It was getting on to 6PM and we were anxious to get it finished because tonight was Paul Tibbets' pilot's party; his final step to getting his Dolphins.

Paul and the other ET's had already left for the White Horse Tavern, where his party was being held, as they were not needed for the work we were doing. The White Horse is a pricey venue and he wanted to get there early as he was paying for it.

As we were pulling the sub into the hanger to finish up, I looked down at the deck and saw a shiny puddle and thought, "has someone been soldering?". But no, I knew just what it was. Mercury was leaking from the trim system. Sonofabitch! Now, of all times.

Alvin has 500lbs of mercury in two spheres forward and two aft. It's used to trim the sub nose-down or nose-up by pumping it fore or aft. It was very effective. You could easily achieve a nose-down attitude that was very uncomfortable and I don't think anyone ever pumped it all the way forward. Too scary and really there was no reason to. If you got the nose of the sub pointed too low, you would go deeper as you drove forward. A little nose-down gave the pilot a bit more visibility but it was easy to go too far.
The way it worked was that there was a hose connecting the bottom of the front spheres to the bottom of the aft spheres. You put hydraulic pressure on the top of the aft spheres to push mercury out of the bottom to the forward spheres and vice versa. The problem for us was that there was no bladder between the oil and the mercury so the oil would become contaminated with it. Looking back, we would often get covered in the hydraulic oil, so that wasn't all that healthy.

In those days many connections in Alvin's hydraulic system used Lenz fittings. These involved a copper crush-washer to make a high pressure seal. When the connector was tightened to the proper torque the collapsible copper would form a good seal. The problem in this scenario is that the hydraulic oil contaminated with mercury would react with the copper, making it brittle over time and the crush-washer would crumble and leak.... and this brings us to a fine Bermuda evening with great expectations about to be dashed.
This is no 'let's clean it up tomorrow' spill. Mercury is hazmat and has to be dealt with immediately.
So out comes the mercury spill kit. from down in the ship's hold. You have to wear a Tyvek suit, gloves, respirator, and glasses. All four of us had to dress this way as not only did we have to clean up the spill, but had to locate the source of the leak and repair it. All of this took several hours while we removed skins from the sub and undid a lot of the work we spent the day doing, all made slower by wearing the protective garb.
Eventually we got it all cleaned up, hazmat dealt with, and the sub put back together. We showered and dressed and raced to the White Horse as quickly as possible. By the time we got there, the open bar was closed, and all the food was gone. But our shipmates and science party were in fine shape after the whole evening of partying. The bar closed soon after. It is a shame as pilot's parties are a very special thing to the sub crew. Important to the brotherhood.
So all I can say is some days you're the statue, and some days you're the pigeon. That's life in the Alvin Group.