He's going to Ram us!!!

This day started out like so many others. We were working in the Pacific about 800 miles southwest of Costa Rica. Being mid-summer the weather was nice most of the time this close to the Equator. A little too hot if anything. These are the days that everyone on board wants to be a recovery swimmer. You get to get off the ship and get wet. The water is so warm that you wear just trunks, no wet suit. Also it’s nice to get off the ship even for a brief period. 

It’s a very small world on a 210ft. boat. With my trusty swim partner J.B. we launched the small boat in a 3ft sea one afternoon to recover Alvin after another dive to the bottom for science. We were still pretty new at this launch and recovery method on the Atlantis II. But today would be a piece of cake in these nice flat seas and full daylight.

Craig Dickson the coxswain on the small boat, dropped us close by the sub once we spotted it on the surface about 500m off the port bow of the Atlantis II. Everything was going well. We got the safety lines on and the tow bridle rigged. We stood on the either side of the sail while I talked on the phone to the pilot inside telling him that we were ready and he should call the ship and tell them.

At this point the ship should pass along side us by about 100' trailing the towline slowly. As the ship passes us the small boat will pick up the towline and drive it over to us.

Something is not right here. The Atlantis II is now only 500' away and headed right at us. It seemed to be going pretty fast too. I'm yelling at the pilot and I can hear him yelling on the radio but I can't take my eyes off the bow of the ship that is now towering over us.

Jon comes over to my side of the sub, away from the ship and we get ready to jump and swim for our lives as it looks like the ship is going to cut the sub in half. In the last second we decide not to jump as the bow wake pushes the sub to one side and we begin to bounce off the hull for the whole length of the ship.

I have two vivid memories of this moment. First, the hull of the ship at the bow does not go straight up and down, it curves out from the water line on up. So that when we were at the bow we were so close to the hull then when I looked up I could not see the sky. Second, I could see the edge of the rail where a crowd had gathered. They had a look of abject horror on their faces and they were pointing at me!

This was just a flash as we continued to bounce off the hull causing the sub to heel over unnaturally. I can only imagine what the three people inside were thinking at that point.

We had another big problem coming up fast. There was a davit with a cable hanging down into the water to a transducer and we were about to get tangled up in it. We should have but by some stroke of luck, we passed outboard of it. But not completely. The side of Alvin's sample basket caught the cable and the basket was pulled from the sub and was dangling from it's safety lines.  As luck would have it the basket was full of major samplers; eight of them. These are used to sample hydro-thermal fluid from the vents and cost about $25k each.

On pure adrenaline we swam down the 10ft to retrieve each sampler and swam it over to the small boat then going back for more. I am now cursing every cigarette I've smoked but we got it done.

The ship now had come to a stop and we got the tow line. From that point on the rest went as planned. I had to write up my side of what happened and the Navy investigated, but if anything came out of it, no one ever told me.

Brody

George Broderson had been with the Alvin group since just about day one. He was Alvin’s crew chief and directed all the maintenance on the sub. After a long career he retired at age 65. His last trip at sea was the one just before he was hired so I never got to sail with him. Depending on who you talked to, I either missed out on a great and rare experience or was one luck S.O.B.

He was pretty strict when it came to dealing with just about everyone. He wasn’t out to be your friend if you were in a position subordinate to him. When we went into my first overhaul he was hired back as a casual employee to do all the fiberglass work and painting on the sub. He had a shop set up in the back of the warehouse.

One beautiful spring day, a Saturday I think, we had the High Bay door open while we were working on the sub. We got the word that a tour was coming through that morning. This was fairly common as Alvin has always been popular with the public. This day it was the M.I.T. class of 1950 something and their spouses. About 60 people who would be escorted by some one from the public affairs office, or The Ministry of Disinformation as we called them. Some of these tour guides were notorious for their blatant ignorance of the subject they were expounding on.

Just prior to them showing up, Brody had brought down a batch of skins for the sub that he had just finished painting in a 2 part epoxy paint. He set them up leaning against the loading dock to sit in the sun. The tour group showed up on schedule and the tour guide started to give a talk about the sub and was pointing out various parts about the High Bay. While this was going on a woman in her late 50’s separated from the group and wandered over to the freshly painted skins and began to poke at on with her finger. Brody politely stepped up and said “excuse my madam but please don’t do that. I just painted those and they’re still wet”. “They don’t look wet” she replied wile continuing to poke at the paint. This got Brody to change his tone and say “Lady, they’re soft, just like your fucking head!” The woman, quite startled didn’t say a word as she shuffled back into the crowd.  This was typical of Brody's tact. She was lucky to get the first, polite request.

Anatomy of a Dive

Things start early on a dive day. Every one is up and at it by 5:30. It takes all hands to pre-dive the sub and prepare the ship for an Alvin launch. I was the electrician so I did the electrical pre-dive. The mechanical group and the electronics boys had their own pre-dive routines to go through. The first thing I would do is disconnect the battery chargers that had been running all night.

This is what really drives Alvin’s schedule. After running the batteries down all day it takes 10 to 12 hours to recharge them. I would then top the battery tanks off with oil and they would be all set for the day’s dive.

Pre-dive is simply checking every system on the sub and getting it ready for the day’s dive. This takes 5 men about 2 hours doing a well practiced routine. Sometimes there are glitches and it’s a scramble to get it fixed and launch on time. Besides the sub a pre-dive routine takes place in the top lab where Alvin is tracked and communications takes place. Also the A-frame and small boat are checked out. In all there are 33 pieces of paper work to be filled out for each dive.

Once the pre-dive is complete the pilot for the day will do his power on checks. With a man standing by outside, the pilot will run all systems to ensure everything is as it should be. He will then call for a “line”. Piled in a bin in the hanger is everything that will go inside the sphere for that days dive. There will be cameras, warm clothing, lunch, cans of lithium hydroxide to remove co2 from the atmosphere and a variety of other items.

When you hear some one call “line!” you stop what you’re doing and help out loading all this stuff.

Once the line is finished the shore power is disconnected and the sub is powered by its batteries. The air conditioning hose is pulled out of the sphere and Alvin is backed out of the hanger till it’s positioned under the A-frame. As soon as the sub stops a couple of the techs will install the dive weights for the day. These are one inch thick steel plates about 10 inches square bolted together to make a stack that weighs 250 lbs. 2 stack are loaded on each side attached to solenoids so that the pilot can drop them from inside. Two are dropped on descent and 2 are dropped for ascent. Usually the pilot is still inside finishing the power on checks. This is the tricky part. When the power on checks are complete Alvin is ready to launch. On most of my dive days I would be up and doing the electrical pre-dive stopping only for a 10 minute breakfast. Finishing that, it was right in the sphere for the power on checks. I would climb out of the sub, descend the ladder to the deck to find my 2 observers for the day waiting eagerly and ready to go with no delay. I on the other hand am wearing the oil soaked work cloths I did the pre-dive in. I have been at work now for a solid 2 hours getting the sub ready and have to change clothes and often shower just from doing the pre-dive and use the head. Meanwhile these folks are standing around tapping their feet and looking at their watches. No pressure, take your time.

Ten minutes later and I’m back. If this were down around the equator I would come out wearing just shorts and sneakers. With the water and air temp. both being in the 80’s the inside of the sphere started warming up as soon as the air conditioner was pulled out. By the time all 3 people are inside and the hatch is sealed the temperature inside will get up around 100 in no time. Eventually it will cool down from the cold ocean water at depth but not for an hour or so. The observers will cool down first as they are leaning against the hull. The pilot however sits on this ridiculous little padded box in the middle of the sphere and spends the day squatting in a hunched over position looking out the front view port. There are a few key items in that box such as a can of lithium hydroxide and a spare microphone for the underwater telephone. It could be a half hour before I put on a t-shirt but in an hour and a half I will be wearing coveralls, a fleece and a watch cap. No shoes were allowed in the sphere so we all had those leather bottomed wool socks.

Now that we are inside and the hatch is closed I’m communicating with the surface controller and the small boat by radio and I’ll talk to the swimmers by sound powered phone. These days the swimmers ride the sub out on the A-frame but in my day they had to get to the sub by small boat. This was due to the Navy certification of the A-frame and it takes them a long time to come around to anything new. Once everything was ready the ship would launch the small boat and turn into the wind. The Launch Coordinator, a qualified Alvin pilot, would then signal the A-frame operator to swing the A-frame out and Alvin would be lifted from the deck. As the A-frame goes out Alvin is about 10 ft. off the deck at the apex of its travel. Fully extended, the bottom of the sub is level with the deck. The Atlantis II had about 8 ft. of free-board or the distance from the deck to the waterline. You could only measure that on a flat calm day. If there was a good sea running, say 8 to 10 ft. then the waves would be licking at the bottom of the sub. The job of timing when to lower the sub to the water is on the Launch Coordinator. I have to say that that is some of the highest pucker factor work I’ve ever done. People have asked me, as an Alvin pilot, have I ever found myself in a dangerous situation. Well, sure but nothing ever brought more sheer terror to my heart than a recovery in 20 ft. and I’m calling the shots. There’s a high potential of screwing up and getting some one hurt. It’s one thing to be in harms way yourself but another when you’re making snap decisions that have your friend’s lives hanging in the balance. Where do you look for a model of how to do this? How many subs in the world are there like this? 4, maybe 6? Not too many hard guide lines here. If you want to do this job you have to be able to think on your feet.

So as a pilot, there you are in the sub hanging off the end of the A-frame when the Launch Coordinator gives the command “latch out and lower away” timing it so the sub comes down in the trough of a wave. This makes it easy on the swimmers because the sub will rise on the next wave putting slack in the lift lines making them easy to disconnect. Depending on the sea state this is a difficult time for the swimmers. If the seas are up the winch can’t haul the lift line in fast enough so you have all this 4” line piling up around you and you have to make sure it doesn’t snag on anything. A lot like herding cats but you get it done. After the lift lines are gone the ship will slack to tow line and the swimmers will disconnect it. The sub is now free from the ship.

Floating there at the mercy of the waves the pilot hangs on to the one inch aluminum pipe “bird cage” inside the sphere. The bird cage supplies the infrastructure to attach panels for switches and meters as well as something to mount the electronics to. I have been the pilot on a dive when the ship had some problem delaying the recovery and we sat on the surface in rough seas for 2 hours. Barf bags for everybody and my arms ached for days just from hanging on to those aluminum pipes. The sub rolls and pitches wildly in heavy seas.

Once the swimmers are in the small boat, finished with their tasks of disconnecting the tow bridle and basket safeties, the coxswain will give the all clear by radio. I would then call the Surface Controller with a final status check and request permission to dive. With a go from him it’s open the ballast tank vents and Alvin begins to submerge, slowly at first but eventually picking up speed to a whopping one mile an hour. This is the maximum speed that the sub will go up and down. Over the years many things have been tried to increase it but it’s a lot like pushing a sheet of plywood through the water. It will only go so fast.

Finally you’re on your way to some relief from the heat and the pitching and rolling. After descending to only 100 meters all sense of motion ceases. No more wave action, just a long free-fall through the water column. One strange phenomenon is that the sub will slowly rotate clockwise as it sinks and counterclockwise as it ascends. As the temperature comes down you start adding layers of clothing. By the time you get to 2000 meters you’re fully dressed.

On the way down there’s plenty to do. The observers will make ready their hand held cameras and voice recorders and the pilot will be monitoring the atmosphere and all off Alvin’s systems preparing for a bottom approach. A lot of strategy about the days dive is discussed and maps are poured over.

Then there is the light show of bio-luminescence. As Alvin descends through the water it disturbs the simple animals that live there and they glow briefly. Except for the red panel lights it’s dark in the sphere and the outside lights are off. Many first time observers are nervous about going below but staring out the window at this sight seen nowhere else takes their mind off the fact that they are in a place where humans don’t belong.

As Alvin approaches the bottom the pilot is watching the altimeter which usually, depending on what the sea floor is made of starts working about 200 meters up. If it’s a rock bottom the altimeter gets a great signal return but if the bottom is all mud a lot of the acoustic signal gets absorbed and you may not get a reading till 50 meters. You really have to be on top of your game here. The text book style of bottom approach taught to every pilot in training is very inefficient. On the way down the pilot will have pumped water in or let water out of the variable ballast system to make a course adjustment in buoyancy based on the weight of the passengers and payload of the day. When you get to 100 meters altitude you drop one 250 lb. weight. Still descending you drop another at 50 meters and come to a stop where you adjust the variable ballast system for neutral buoyancy then drive down till the bottom is in sight. This is the safe and secure way to do it but it also wastes a lot of time. Just like driving a sports car you gain confidence and knowledge in the machine that makes you question arcane rules and you wind up doing it the way that seems best. When I got to this point I was dropping my first weight at 30 meters and the second at 20. I would then drive up hard and come to a stop 5 meters above the bottom every time ready to go to work. Now the fun begins.

When you reach the bottom its worth spending a few minutes there to make sure the sub is neutrally buoyant. Alvin’s variable ballast system consists of six 36 inch Titanium spheres and a pump to take on or remove water allowing the pilot to very accurately adjust the subs buoyancy. Running the pump at depth is very expensive on the power budget though and should be used sparingly. To adjust the subs trim there is 250 lbs. of mercury that can be pumped fore and aft to adjust the nose down attitude. This is a careful balance as to much nose down and you will be diving every time you drive forward. It’s very important to be neutrally buoyant. If you have to run the lift props all the time to stay down they will eat up a lot of battery and it will be a short dive. The same is true if you’re heavy and have to drive up but you will also be stirring up a dust cloud that will ruin the visibility all day. Battery power is everything. Most dives are ended due to low battery power.

Once neutral you’re ready to go. Before reaching the bottom the pilot will have turned on all the necessary systems to start doing the day’s science plan right away. Here the pilot is taking direction from the number one observer having outlined the plan on the way down.

The bottom can take many shapes and composition depending on where you are. Out in the abyssal plains the sediment is miles deep with a texture of clay except for the top 3 inches that’s fluffy. On top of the mid ocean ridges it will be hard rock and basalt with little sediment. This is where you find the hydro-thermal vents. There’s as much variety down there as there is on the surface. As far as biology goes it’s like a desert with the vent areas being like an oasis. Life on the bottom is far and few between. On the plains you might find one starfish in 2 acres. 90% of the life in the ocean is in the top 100 ft. due to the suns rays and photosynthesis. At the hydro-thermal vents, most of which are around 2500 meters deep life abounds. These animals make there oxygen by chemo-synthesis, turning sulfur dioxide into oxygen, A process that is not completely understood and a subject of much study in the oceanographic world. Depending on the size of the vent or vent field you can find a small mix of animals to a huge complex colony. If the vent closes off, something that does happen and often the colony withers and dies.

These vent areas are mostly isolated communities particularly on the mid Atlantic ridge. One vent out there is called TAG. It’s a mound on the ridge that’s venting at 375 Centigrade. That’s about 650 degrees Fahrenheit. Hot enough to melt lead. The top of the mound is teeming with life. Shrimp, crabs, mussels and starfish among others but no big tube worms like the pacific vents. The entire vent mound is no more that 100 feet across and there isn’t another vent for many hundreds of miles. If you get 100 feet away from the vent site there is little or no life at all. This is how isolated the communities are.

Off the coast of Washington state about 100 miles or so is the Endeavor Vent Field. An area about the size of a football field it’s the home to large number of vents and is probably the most studied vent field on the planet due to it’s close proximity to shore and the easy logistics of getting there. Filled with a large mixture of venting structures, most are given names based on scientists first impressions, such as Bastille, Peanut, Twin Peaks and a huge one called Godzilla. There are a few that are named for scientists children such as Rebecca’s Roost but I find that sappy and not very scientific or professional.

The hydro-thermal vents are with out a doubt the most dangerous place to dive in Alvin. In order the sample the fluid that’s chugging out of the vent like smoke billowing from a hole under high pressure, you have to get within arms length of it. On a nicely active vent the water is coming out at temperatures up to 700 degrees Fahrenheit. Bringing Alvin in close enough to sample puts the plastic view ports within arms length as well. Getting in too close could be disastrous. If a view port came in direct contact with the vent fluid close to the hole it’s coming from it would easily melt it, flooding the sphere so fast you wouldn’t even know it happened. But it doesn’t have to get that close. If the fluid just softens it the 4000 PSI ocean pressure will finish the job. I used to joke around with the first time observers when they looked nervous and asked them to do a math problem to take their mind off it. How long would it take to fill a six foot sphere with water through a 4 inch hole at 6600 PSI? Kind of mean, I know but what can I say. I would then follow up by saying that if I thought I was going to die doing this I would find another line of work. I used to have a T shirt that said “I work well under pressure” and on the back it said “6600 PSI”.

I had 8 training dives to become a pilot. Most of them were in the Endeavor vent field. After learning to dive there, everything else was easy. Driving around those structures is a complicated and dangerous way to spend a day. I have been to all the major vent fields and the only thing that comes close to Endeavor is in the Indian Ocean. Endeavor is graduate level flying. It takes about 30 dives to be a cocky “I know my shit pilot”. That takes about 18 month of sea time to get that many dives.

As you cruise across the bottom there are many things for both the pilot and the observer to pay strict attention to. One very important rule is power consumption. The only power available for the dive is the batteries. When they run down to approximately 20 % the dive is over. Time to drop weights and head up. A dive can be short or long depending on a variety of things but the most common cause of a short dive in running out of juice. The battery tanks, there are 2 on board, are serviced on a 3 month rotating schedule. This ensures that one of them will be fresh. A recently serviced battery will have up to 40% more power available than a tank that is 3 months old. Then there is the holy grail of power consumption. All the observers are told in the initial briefing and throughout the dive that if they leave their lights on the whole time it will be a short dive. They always do but it’s because they don’t dive often enough to remember that kind of detail. Most observers will dive only once or twice in their lives. The pilot winds up sounding like a broken record; “turn off you’re light, turn off you’re light, turn off you’re light”. I can get so frustrating that the pilot winds up thinking “screw it. We’ll be home for lunch”. On a full battery charge, Alvin can cover over 10 kilometers in a day but leaving the lights on unnecessarily can shorten that to 6 klicks.

Driving over the bottom at 3 to 4 ft. can be tricky depending on terrain and speed but it’s the best height for making good scientific observations. The pilot however cannot see what is directly in front and below his window because of the sample basket. When sitting on the bottom He will often use the manipulators while looking out the observers windows.

Alvin has a forward looking sonar that works very well and can help with looking at the big picture, but when it comes to maneuvering around structures and rough bottom there’s nothing like seat of the pants flying. Sitting on the pilot’s chair, half kneeling against the hull, the pilot leans forward to put his face right in the four and a half inch window. With the forward lights blazing the visibility is about 60 to 70 feet in good detail but looming beyond could be a huge boulder or a cliff face. This is a world of complete darkness. The only light is what you bring with you. Most often yours is the first light to ever shine there.

The sub has enough forward speed that it’s easy to out drive your headlights. By that I mean you can get going so fast that if a wall appeared at the furthest reach of your vision you couldn’t stop in time. Been there, done that. Your only hope then is to drive up and try to get over it. Besides, if your going that fast the observers don’t get to look at any thing for a useful period of time. The bottom is just whizzing by. The word on that is to go slow and take it easy so they can toke good notes and pictures. If you have to go somewhere fast from point “A” to point “B”, it’s best to come up off the bottom a bit, say 10 meters and drive full speed using the sonar to avoid hitting anything. This way you can bring the sub up to full speed or about a knot and a half.

All this time submerged the pilot has readings on the atmosphere, leak detectors and electrical system to monitor every 30 minutes. A small mechanical timer is used to keep that regular. Sometimes the CO2 will creep up and one of the observers will complain of a headache. I never noticed. That’s about the only good thing smoking cigarettes ever did for me. I’d just tell them that they were breathing too much and were going to have to take shifts. All you have to do is speed up the blower motor on the can of Lithium Hydroxide to get the CO2 down. A little noisy but it works.

There has to be communication between the sub and the surface every 30 minutes. The pilot will do this when ever he check the atmosphere and leak detectors. This is usually done with the underwater telephone. This takes a bit of getting used to because of delay that’s a lot like making a telephone call through several satellites. The speed of sound through water is much slower that the speed of radio waves through air. Also there are several echoes of what is said due to the sound waves bouncing off thermal layers and even the surface. When you’re really busy sampling or driving through a rough spot there’s no time to turn around and pick up the microphone so the pilot will us a button mounted by the front window that acts like a Morse code key. If the surface controller called down at the 30 minute interval he will most likely send the letter “D”. As stated in the Alvin manual this means “What is your depth” He requires that information to accurately plot a position of the sub. The pilot will call up with that number or if bust send the letter “B” meaning on the bottom all is normal. This also implies that the subs depth has not changed since the last call. Other simple one letter queries and replies are essential when using a transponder net. The transponders use the same frequency range as the underwater telephone so if you talk in voice the water column will be filled with noise and there will be no position fixes from the transponder net for several minutes. Some of the other commands are the letter “V” for “give me a vector” or the letter “U” for “are you there?” “R” stands for “Roger”. There are others but these are the most commonly used.

All this has the pilot very busy from the time the bottom is in sight to dropping the weights to come home. When it came time for lunch the pilot will take a sandwich from one of the observers and eat it with one hand while driving with the other, face up against the view port. I always did the electricians post dive and part of that is cleaning up inside after a dive. The pilots “dashboard” would always be covered with bread crumbs. We heard that the French in the sub Nautille would stop and sit on the bottom to have lunch. They even had wine! We had water or black coffee.

Driving over the bottom is a fun, exiting and a real edge of the seat experience but there is no thrill bigger than getting up close and personal to use the arms for sampling. Alvin has two arms. One on the port side and one starboard. The port arm I used when I was a pilot is now in the exhibit center as a museum piece. This was delivered with the sub in 1964 as original equipment. It was old when I got there and didn’t get any younger. It was maintenance intensive and the overtime from working on that thing helped to but my first house. The starboard arm was everything the port arm was not. It had one more joint in the wrist and that was key. Also it was hydraulically powered and that made it very strong. It was the arm of choice to use for sampling. And if you did use it you wouldn’t be up all night working on it. After a day in the sub, you’re beat. Both of these arms were controlled by toggle switches. Once used to them I became quite skilled but these controls by today’s standard are so archaic it’s laughable. The modern arms on Alvin today are 7 function, specially correspondent, force feedback manipulators. In layman’s terms, they will mimic the movements of your own arm and allow you to “feel” what you’re grabbing, pushing or lifting. They have amazing dexterity making it possible for the pilot to carry out complex tasks that were never thought possible just a few years ago.

The front end of Alvin features the sample basket. It also acts as the front bumper. The frame is made of one and a half inch aluminum pipe and has a wire mesh basket on top to hold samples and tools. Under the frame is a 10 inch wide aluminum ski. Most often this is the only part of the sub to touch the bottom while flying along because the pilot will always have a bit of nose down attitude in order to see better over the basket. This puts the stern higher so that only the ski hits the mud unless you drive down on the lift props to sit hard on the bottom. “Hits” is a relative term. Many people think of the sub gracefully gliding over the bottom but more often than not that’s not the case and the sub has the scars to show for it. The great majority of Alvin’s work is done on the mid ocean ridges. This means hard rock and basalt everywhere. Alvin may be neutrally buoyant but driving forward it still has 18 tons of mass and does not stop quickly even when driving in full reverse. Add to that an inexperienced pilot who doesn’t get the sub quite neutral (they always err on the heavy side) and the sub will hit the bottom many times during a dive. I’m not the only one who’s come back with that aluminum ski pealed back and bent out of shape. That’s why there’s a couple of spares back on the ship. You can plan on being teased about it mercilessly. “How do you drive? By the braille method?”

When it’s time to leave the bottom the pilot will first secure all the tools and samples in the basket. If not done properly any item could wash out of the basket by the wave action on the surface or being towed through the water. When that’s all set he will call the Surface Controller and get clearance to come up. There are still two 250 lb. weights to drop. You release one and feel the sub heel over a bit confirming it dropped. When the second one goes the sub will heel the other way, now its sit and wait as the sub rises at about the same rate it went down. When you drop the weights you’re committed to going to the surface as the lift props do not have enough power to overcome that 500 lbs. of positive buoyancy.

His is the first time since launch that the pilot can relax a bit but there is still plenty to do on the way up. The first hour or so is spent labeling video and audio tapes, sorting notes and calling the surface to give a science report and a vehicle status report as every one topside is interested in how the day went and how much work there is to do that night. Getting Alvin on deck is definitely not the end of the days work, it only signals the start of the second half.

Approaching the surface is cool every time you do it. At 1000 meters you can look up through the little view port in the hatch and see the first glimmer of light. Looking out the front view port you won’t see light on the basket till 200 meters or so. Before the final approach to the surface to pilot and crew will have secured any loose items that could go flying around in rough seas. Depending on the sea state you begin to feel the motion about 50 meters from the surface. At 30 meters from the surface you can look up from the pilots view port and see the surface from the water side. A very welcome sight.

The Surface Controller will have given the pilot a heading to keep the sub on for recovery. While doing that he’s wearing the sound powered phone head set, waiting for the swimmers to come aboard and make contact while the sub bobs around in the waves. If you’re in tropical waters the inside of the sphere begins to heat up fast and layers of clothing are being shed fast. You can hear the whine of the small boats engine through the hull as it makes its approach and soon after the swimmers plug in and make contact. They will go about their business hooking up the basket safeties and tow bridle while often taking the time to moon the pilot at his view port 6 ft. under. Once the swimmers are done the ship will come by trailing the tow line behind it and so they can hook up and Alvin will be in tow. At this point the pilots’ job is just about done for the time being. Hauled in under the A-frame and lifted from the water he’ll wait till the Launch coordinator rinses the hatch with fresh water and then open up to some well earned fresh air. Due to the sphere being a bit cool and the rare at which the oxygen is used there can be a bit of a vacuum inside that will pop the ears when the hatch is opened.

The observers are of course the first ones out with the pilot last. In those days Jon would be waiting for me at the bottom of the ladder with a smoke and a light. There was the usual “Good job” and “Great dive” from the observers and it was off to dinner. Taking 30 minutes for that I would repair to the back deck for another butt and just like that went from pilot of the day to the electrician. I would spend any where from one hour or till midnight doing the post dive and fixing anything broken. And something was always broken.

The electricians post dive was fairly involved. It meant getting back inside and running all systems on the sub to ensure there was nothing broken and no surprises in the morning. That was part of it. The other part was to recover from having three people inside for 8 hours. The sphere is always in a state of disarray and had to be put back in order. As soon as I got situated I would call for a line to get all that stuff that was loaded in the morning out of there. The boys would stop doing there post dives to bear a hand. Since no one in the crew was standing by a radio, I would signal them by giving the ballast air a blow 3 quick times, a very loud and distinctive sound. The first thing out would be the used oxygen bottle and the last thing would be the HERE bottles. This stands for Human Element Range Extender. They were full of urine. Science was politely asked to empty their own. I however went to the Ralph Hollis School of submersible piloting. If you drank 5 or 6 beers the night before you would wake up dehydrated and didn’t have to pee all day.

The nastiest part of the electricians post dive was wiping out what we called “Lung Mung”. All the condensation from three people breathing in the sphere for 8 hours collects on the hull and eventually forms a puddle in the bottom of the sphere under the floor boards. It will total about two quarts in all and has to be whipped from the walls with a towel and sponged from the bilge to be squeeze into a bucket. You just keep telling yourself that it’s only distilled water. When that’s done the batteries are put on charge and the post dive is over. If you’re lucky you can knock off by 8 pm and catch the movie in the galley. Tomorrow it’s Surface Controller, then Launch Coordinator the next day followed by being Pilot again.

A Dark and Stormy Night

Probably the most freighting night of my life was spent at sea. We were off the coast of Charleston S.C. on board the research vessel R/V Atlantis II, operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. On board was the 3 man deep diving submersible, Alvin, for which I was a pilot and recovery swimmer.

We were new to this ship having just spent the last 8 months transferring Alvin from the R/V Lulu, a 105-ft. catamaran and a ship of limited ability. The Atlantis II is a 210-ft. vessel with twin screws and a bow-thruster and a much more capable and comfortable vessel. Alvin is recovered by a large 44 ft. A- frame crane that hangs over the stern of the ship and lifts the sub from the water and swings it inboard to set it on deck.

Alvin is owned by the U.S. Navy and they have the final say as too how operations are conducted. One of the things they insisted on was that we should do 50 unmanned launch and recoveries before they would certify the A-frame for manned use.This meant launching the sub and opening the hatch on the surface to get the pilot and 2 observers inside. The reverse was true for recovery. A 17 ft. small boat was used to shuttle personnel from the ship to the sub.

It was early in the year so it got dark around 5 PM. We had come down to Charleston from Woods Hole to escape the cold of winter and complete the set up of the sub on our new mother ship. On the 3^rd dive ever done from the Atlantis II. we launched Alvin in a 6 ft. sea and it dove to a depth of about 3500 meters. At this depth it takes Alvin about 2 hours to reach the bottom and the same amount of time to transit back to the surface.

On this day the sky was heavily overcast with a temperature in the low 50’s. Towards the late morning the seas began to build rapidly and it began to rain hard. At 2 PM, The crew chief, Dudley Foster called down to Alvin that the weather was deteriorating rapidly and they should surface immediately. By the time they reached the surface the seas had now built to 18 to 20 ft. These are really big waves. One of the most dangerous parts of the whole operation is the launching of the small boat. We were just able to do this. Craig Dickson was the coxswain on this recovery. Once the small boat was in the water it was too rough for my swim partner, Jonathan Borden and I to climb down the ladder into the boat so we jumped from the side of the Atlantis II and swam over.

Now let me tell you, if those waves looked big from the Atlantis II they were down right mountainous from the small boat. All three of us had to wear divers' masks to be able to see as the rain really hurt on the face. We would race to the top of a wave, have 3 seconds to look before the nose of the boat would drop and we would scream down the other side only to surf up to the top of the next one.

We were getting nowhere fast. After close to a half-hour of this we still had not spotted Alvin. The Atlantis II had a VHF direction finder and was able to vector us to the vicinity of the sub. Once we located it, Jon and I swam over and got aboard.

Normally the coxswain will drop you 10 ft. from the sub but on this night, given the sea state, Craig dropped us about 50 ft. away. On any other day day this would be an easy swim, but in 20 ft. seas with 35kt winds and heavy rain it was somewhat difficult.

We had the sample basket safety lines wrapped around our waists and I was holding the sound powered phone above the water while swimming to the sub. The sound powered phone is used to talk to the pilot from the outside. When the phone gets wet as it did this night, you have to take the mouth piece and the ear piece out of the handle and bang the water out of them. Trying to do this while hanging on for dear life as the wildly lurching sub rose up on these huge waves was no simple task. Once I made contact with the pilot inside who on this day was the chief pilot, Ralph Hollis, we had to attach the basket safety lines. These are 10-ft. ropes that you have to hook up from to front of the sample basket to the sail to prevent the basket from accidentally falling off. The basket is located on the front of Alvin about 8 feet below the surface.

Trying to swim down through the churning seas to do this was almost impossible. We got one line on and decided that was going to have to be good enough.

I get back on the phone to the pilot and tell him that there is several inches of water over the hatch. That’s just tough he says, as we still have to get the 3 people out. By talking to Ralph on the phone and him talking to Capt. Baker on that ship by radio it’s decided to let Capt. Baker try an idea of his. He begins to sail the Atlantis II around the sub in tight circles trying to flatten the seas out a bit. He does about 4 circles around the sub and from my point of view nothing has changed. Of course the view from standing on top of the sub is pretty grim anyway.

The decision is made to open the hatch. When it flies open the 2 scientist come out like they are shot from a cannon. No one wants to be trapped inside if the sphere floods and make one final trip to the bottom. Ralph is the last one out. He slams the hatch shut and secures it. Back on deck we will find 10 gallons of seawater inside. This does wonders for the electronics.

There are now 5 of us standing on the outside of the sub as Craig comes in to pick up the crew. Once they are safely in the small boat the Atlantis II sets up for its recovery approach. What they will normally do is pass a towline to the small boat and they will bring it over to Alvin. The swimmers then hook it to the sub and it is pulled in until it is beneath the A-frame with its lift-line.

There is no way that was going to happen today. Instead they streamed the towline out behind the ship and cut across our bow. We will then grab it as it goes by and hook it up. This has never been done before but by some stroke of luck we get it done in the first pass and the begin hauling us in.

It was bad enough standing on top of the sub in these seas but now as we are being pulled towards the ship the sub is actually pulled under the tops of the waves. Jon and I are forced to stand behind the sail and time holding our breath as the sub is pulled under at the crest of each wave. Between wave peaks we have a few seconds to yell encouragement to each other over the shrieking wind. We just can’t believe we are in this position. In the end we can do nothing but make jokes about it. We’re both scared and not trying to hide it. The potential to be killed or maimed is enormous.

We are rising up to a point that we are looking down on the crew standing on the ships deck. A few seconds later we are straining our necks to look up and see them. All the while we are being pulled closer to where we will be beneath the A-frame. The very hard steel A-frame.

Eventually, we are 10 ft. from the stern of the ship and rising so high that I can reach out and touch that steel. There are 2 lines to attach to Alvin. The stern line is 1 inch thick and has a 5 lb. steel hook at the end. The main line, which will go on first, is a 4-inch thick synthetic rope with a soft loop in the end. When it comes down it’s like grabbing a 150-lb. piece of well-cooked pasta. It’s very soft and floppy. It takes both of us to manhandle the loop around big titanium “T” just aft of the sail. As the sub rises, all the slack in the line falls on top of me but the line must be held in place. When the sub falls to the bottom of a wave that line comes taut and turns as rigid as a steel pipe. This sequence repeats itself over and over.

While I tend the mainline Jon turns aft to hook up the stern line. I am not paying attention to Jon but I see the crew on deck yelling to get my attention and look aft. No Jon. He was swept overboard by the last wave and I am left standing there by myself.

The A-frame operator has now taken a lot of the slack out of the main line and it looks like the constant tension winch will stop the loop from falling off the big “T”. I turn around and there’s the stern line swinging in the wind. Without thinking I fall flat on my stomach while grabbing the hook on the way down and snap it into place. No sooner does the hook snap into place and my world is upside down, sideways and free-fall. That last breaking wave has swept me from the back of Alvin and I am tumbling into the water.

This whole event is being watched by the people in the small boat. Craig has already picked Jon up and has never lost sight of me. As I break the surface I hear Jon calling “are you all right?” and Craig brings the boat right up to me and they haul me aboard just in time to see Alvin being lifted clear of those murderous seas and set safely on deck. But the party is not over yet. We still have to get back aboard the Atlantis II.

As I said before, getting into the small boat from the ship is difficult and dangerous in these seas. Getting back aboard is even more so. Instead of the usual ladder to climb up the boson has replaced it with a cargo net hanging over the side. This will give a lot more hand holds to grab should any one fall. The Atlantis II steers a course to give us a lee on that side of the ship and Craig brought the boat along side. Once close enough Jon and I throw bow and stern lines to the waiting deck hands. We rise up high enough on each wave to almost step onto the deck. It’s at this peak that you have to time your jump. You have to time this right; you only get one shot. The scientists are the first to go and are helped over the rail by the deck crew. Ralph is next followed by Jon then me. The crane hook is then lowered to Craig who hooks up the boat and stays aboard while it is hoisted from the sea and set on deck.

Now, after using up a 2-year supply of adrenaline, I’m sitting on the deck with by back against a bulkhead, dripping in my wet suit trying to figure out why I’m still alive. The chief pilot walks up to me and says “ The starboard lower light is out and the port manipulator doesn’t work. Fix them before you knock off. 

Oh well. I guess that’s life in the Alvin Group!

Air Time in the Boat

Jon and I were swimming again for a recovery with Craig (mad dog) Dixon

at the wheel of the Avon, a pretty cool boat. It's a rigid hull

inflatable 17' with and eighty five horse motor, lots of get up and

go. The big round inflatable sides are great for this kind of work. If

you do bump against the sub, no harm done. But they do make for a

wide surface area, like a kite.

Craig sat on a snowmobile seat down the center-line and Jon and I

stood in the back holding onto the sissy bar at the rear of the seat

with one hand and a rope loop from the side of the boat in the

other. Real macho stuff.

We loved to go out in this boat. Craig liked to push it to the limit

and we were into it. Standing in the back when Craig gunned it over

the top of a wave, listening to the prop over-speed as the whole

boat went airborne was an awesome thrill. We did get some air time in

that thing.

On this day the wind was up to 30 knots or so, a bit breezy. The swell

had a long period so the wave tops were maybe 200' apart. Plenty of

time to accelerate and get the boat in the air. We did this right

alongside the ship just to give the beakers a show. Today they were

going to get an eye-full. Craig gunned it and got to the crest of the

wave just as the wind gusted. The nose of the boat pointed straight

up to the sky with Jon and I still standing in the back but now we

are horizontal. The boat climbed in the air with our momentum and then

seemed to hang there for the briefest of moments before gravity took

over. We landed square on the motor. The boat could have come back at

us and turned turtle but instead leaned forward to splash down on it's

hull. The motor never stalled and without a word Craig started driving

toward Alvin but at a much lower rate of speed. We did no more wave

jumping that day.

My Fishing Lure

Fishing was always a fun nighttime activity on the Atlantis II. When we were in transit the crew always had trolling lines out but at night when the sub was back on deck it was rod and reel or hand line.
One night the ship's lights had attracted a school of bonito. All you had to have was a shiny lure and you were certain of getting lots of strikes. I had brought a rod with me when we left Woods Hole with a handful of lures, and the ship kept 3 or 4 rods around for general use. Soon enough we had 4 or 5 of us snagging fish.
When you hooked one of these bonito, it would dive, trying to get away and put up a good fight. Lurking beneath the bonito was a school of sharks that would see them in distress, diving out of the crowd and bang! All of a sudden the small fish you had turned into a big one. We wound up catching a lot of bonito heads.
We had a rather colorful deck hand, Fresno Bob, who would collect these fish heads and put them on a big shark hook that he lowered over the side with a stout hand line.
Let me say a few words here about Fresno Bob. He was a huge man and fairly fat but with lots of muscle. He stood about 6'2" and well over 350lbs. Heavily tattooed(not quite as popular then as now), Bob had 'biker' written all over him. As it turned out, Bob had been in a violent run-in with the Bandito biker gang in Bakersfield, CA and took the job of deck hand to lay low until some bad blood blew over. I always thought he was a kind of gentle giant with a great sense of humor. We used to shoot the shit over beers at night and I thought him to be intelligent and well read. We had a similar taste in music. I never thought he would hurt a fly... that is, until he brought that shark on board.
I had caught a number of fish and several times just heads. My last lure was gone so I put my rod aside and was having a beer when Fresno Bob brought up a 5' mako shark. A wicked looking thing that was thrashing around on deck. I guess Bob wasn't happy about that, thinking he might get bitten, so he picked up a 6' piece of 2x4 and started beating this shark about the head. It was an awesome and impressive sight! I knew then that making Fresno Bob mad would be a grave mistake and that maybe some of the stories about the trouble in Bakersfield might have some truth in them. Bob showed an impressive amount of energy but that shark was tough! After a while Bob gave up on that 2x4 and went to his room to get the machete he had picked up in Panama. I had bought one too but Bob had spent some time honing the edge, sharpening it considerably. With sparks flying from the blade as it struck the deck, it took Bob about 20 massive swings to sever that mako's head. An awe inspiring sight. After all of the shark pieces stopped moving he slit open the beast's stomach and out popped several bonito, including one with my lure in its mouth!
I scooped it up and re-rigged my rod to catch a couple more fish. All in all a good night. We had fresh bonito for days and the mako was delicious as well.

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.