The Batteries

One job I knew I would never miss after leaving the Alvin group was servicing the batteries. Every 3 to 4 months the batteries would have to be removed, disassembled, rewatered, reassembled and reinstalled. The whole evolution would take about 5 days and was done during a port stop which meant that the electrician (me) would not get any time off during that stay in port. Today it’s much different. There is a spare battery tank that is changed on a rotating basis so that there is always one being serviced and the sub suffers less down-time. Now a days there are no five day port stops.
Also, on board the Atlantis they have a hydraulic lift to raise and lower the 1800 lb. tank from its resting place in Alvin’s belly. This lift has an air hockey table like surface so that the tank can be slid around with ease for alignment. This was not the case on Lulu. To change a battery tank on the Twin Tubes of Terror you had to wear a life jacket while you climbed around under the sub on the cradle frame just 8 ft. above the water. One slip and you were going swimming. A lifting rig with two chain falls had to be assembled piece by piece under the sub to lower and raise the tanks from their bay. This was a precarious place to be working as you had to hang on with one hand to stop from falling in.
Alvin always tied up at the same place at the WHOI dock and I imagined there was a big mound of wrenches and ratchets resting on the bottom under there. After getting the lifting rig into place we would raise it up with a 5 foot spacer the same footprint as the tank on the rig. The plan here is to lower the tank till the rig bottomed out then hang the tank from chains, remove the spacer and raise the lifting rig to the bottom of the tank, lift and remove the chains, then lower the tank the rest of the way. It’s obvious this can only be done in port on a calm day. There would be one man on each chain fall, fore and aft with a spotter on the side telling them when to lower and keep the tank level. If it didn’t come down strait it might bind and get stuck. Once the tank came ½ way down the chain fall men could not see each other and were too close to the tank to check its level. This is where the life jacket came in handy. Standing there on a 4” steel I beam, the only thing between you and falling in the water was a good grip on that chain. Once the battery tank was lowered all the way it was moved to the port side out from under the sub and lifted on deck by the ships crane. The ships crane on the Lulu was like most of it’s equipment, a very Spartan affair. It was no more than a boom with a hand cranked winch and lifting the batteries to the deck was its primary use.

In the Lulu days there were three battery tanks. One was 30 volts DC for controls and the other two were 60 volts DC for propulsion and lights. All three tanks had the same kind of batteries, just configured differently. They were 6-volt golf cart batteries made by Exide. These were common and bought off the shelf. They were assembled in racks that stacked on top of each other inside the tanks and the tanks were filled with mineral oil. Taking them out and placing them on deck was a messy affair as they would drip oil for days. We set them down on sheets of homasote to absorb the oil. It is very important not to spill any oil over the side, especially in port, or the Coast Guard will be paying a visit with a hefty fine.

Once laid out on deck, I would then use a small vacuum pump to suck the oil out of each cell. When the batteries were used the electrolyte or acid level would go down over a 3 month period and the oil would take its place. It was very important to remove only the oil and none of the acid. The cells would then be refilled with distilled water and recharged over night.

Bright and early the next morning I would secure the charges and hook all the batteries up to a large resistor bank to discharge them at the 30 amp rate. At 30 amps this would simulate the batteries working moderately hard. Every 15 minutes I would take a voltage reading on each and every battery for the next 6 to 7 hours looking for weak ones. There would always be at least a half dozen. At the end of the day I would change out the bad batteries for new ones and put them all on charge again over night. This process would be repeated three times till all the weak cells were eliminated. After the 3^rd discharge the tanks were reassembled and readied for installation the next day.

Putting the batteries in was a lot slower than taking them out. Hauling on that chain fall to lift the 1800 lb. tanks into place was an aerobic workout. Also the alignment of the tanks was critical so the last few inches always went painfully slowly. This was a long day under the sub but it had to be done as we were sailing the next day.

Working with all that acid would cost me a set of clothes every time I did it. We were never reimbursed for that. But I guess it didn’t matter, working with all the oils that we did day in and day out most of us were dressed in what looked like rags every day anyway. During my first experience with the batteries I wore a pair of green coveralls that I had from my navy days. They looked fine after we got the tanks back in the sub but after I did my laundry it looked as though I had been standing next to several sticks of dynamite when they went off. They were shredded to the point that they were not even suitable as rags. No, I don’t miss those batteries one bit.