This tiny submarine 2.4 miles under the sea, visiting the relics of RMS Titanic. Can it be found and the crew saved before the air runs out?

[Ming the Merciless]

Plus how do you attach a winch and massive cable to it.

Talk to these guys

“InterOcean has a long and successful history designing and manufacturing underwater subsea winch systems. InterOcean is small and flexible enough to produce high-quality custom solutions, without the long lead times and headaches associated with buying from larger, less specialized companies. Because all InterOcean subsea winches are custom engineered, we’re able to work closely with each customer to supply a winch that’s integral to your overall system design. This often results in lower weight, fit within smaller envelopes, more efficient operations, and seamless interface. InterOcean’s subsea/underwater winches are used for a variety of mission-critical applications, whether positioned in shallow water, mid-ocean water column, or on the seabed down to 6000 meters.”

 

[Profpointy]

I never got round to doing Scapa Flow but so far as I remember the general rule was look but do not touch and no filching souvenirs.
That latter was very sore point as a wreck we discovered got stripped as soon as some fool let the location out. Boatloads arrived from England with divers who carried so much cutting gear they did not need weight belts.

The traditional British Club divers are notorious for looting wrecks. It's not usually even anything of value . In the various flooded quarries set up as dive training sites, divers strip stuff of the deliberately sunk helicopter or armoured cars. It's no use nor value to anyone, just makes the place less interesting for the next fellow

In Scapa one year we were there another group nicked all the copper pipes from one of the block ships, which weren't protected. A historic site is diminished, and it's a part of a an economically important tourist destinition brining in a couple of million quid a year, and for what ? Fifty quid, if that, of scrap

 

[fossyant]

I don’t think they can go very deep.
Plus how do you attach a winch and massive cable to it.

I’m sure Elon Musk will be along soon to call everyone a paedo and offer up his amazing secret lifting submarine.

About 300m for a Nuclear Sub. Way off.

 

[Kingfisher101]

How come sonar cant find them?
I used to know a guy who worked in the Navy on the Submarines and he said that they saw a lot of Russians subs on the sonar when they were doing joint exercises with Norway up that way.
I think they will all be dead now, very sadly.

 

[numbnuts]

Breaking News

Missing Titanic sub has about 40 hours of oxygen left, US Coast Guard says, as search intensifies https://bbc.in/3NiNPvT

 

[fossyant]

How come sonar cant find them?
I used to know a guy who worked in the Navy on the Submarines and he said that they saw a lot of Russians subs on the sonar when they were doing joint exercises with Norway up that way.
I think they will all be dead now, very sadly.

It's far down, and in a debris field of bits of Titanic.

 

[Drago]

How come sonar cant find them?
I used to know a guy who worked in the Navy on the Submarines and he said that they saw a lot of Russians subs on the sonar when they were doing joint exercises with Norway up that way.
I think they will all be dead now, very sadly.

It's very small, smaller than many of the natural surface features of the seabed. How does sonar distinguish between a sub - or more likely just wreckage - and a boulder?

If it is at the wreck site it is in a debris field miles long. Even if they had sonar that could map the seabed the amount of processing required will take months.

Furthermore, sonar works best when reflected from the boundary of air and metal such as in a subs pressure hull rather than the metal itself. If the sub is ruptured then the resolution required to locate it with sonar, notwithstanding all the poi ts raised above, will need to be many times higher.

A better chance of sonar locating it on the surface, but wave clutter still makes that a very difficult proposition even for military assets.

Think of it this way. The Titanic is big, real big, and even knowing within a fairly tight radius where it was they were unable to locate it with sonar or magnetometer despite years or trying. It took months of effort trailing an ROV on a search pattern to locate it. Knowing how difficult that was, now Imagine trying to do the same with a tiny sub.

They might get lucky. There is an oil pipeline layer on site with an experienced ROV crew - although I doumt theyre train in search theory, which is largely an exercise in mathematical probability - and other ROV assets are on the way but barring some great stroke of good fortune I think it will not be found for a long time, if ever.

 

[Profpointy]

Those being scathing about being interested in the historic wreck of the Titanic; would they feel the same about visiting the Mary Rose, or The Vassa, Anne Frank's flat, or Verdun, or Paschendale. All are places with a tragic story, and for me of tremendous historic interest, and in my view not ghoulish given a respectful attitude.

Diving wise, one of the most poignant wrecks was a steamship off Normandy sunk in 1917. On the seabed is its cargo of hundreds of miles of barbed wire intended for the front. It give a real connection to the horrors of the trenches given thousands more similar cargoes worth of wire were strung out from Switzerland to the sea, behind which my grandfather stood for a couple of years. Most of the other wrecks we visited were of ships lost in 1944 supporting d-day; again a link to a far worse time than our own and a warning against the follies we see today.

Titanic's loss was sheer bad luck rather than the madness of war, but still of tremendous interest to any student of engineering or maritime history, and I totally see why people might take on some risk to see it up close. A 40m dive in Scapa flow has a moderate but not zero risk, a 60 or 70m dive rather more. Maybe Titanic in a experimental submarine isn't objectively riskier than maybe a 100m scuba dive, as these are perfectly doable with care and preparation, but people are nonetheless regularly lost.

In another sphere, climbing Everest or K2 is extremely risky but people are regularly killed on Ben Nevis or even in the Lakes, so acceptable risk is a matter of degree rather than any principle

 

[oldwheels]

The traditional British Club divers are notorious for looting wrecks. It's not anything of value. In the various flooded quarries set up as dive training sites, divers steel strip stuff of the deliberately sunk helicopter or armoured cars. It's no use nor value to anyone, just makes the place less interesting for the next fellow

In Scapa one year we were there another group nicked all the copper pipes from one of the block ships, which weren't protected. A historic site is diminished, and it's a part of a an economically important tourist destinition brining in a couple of million quid a year, and for what ? Fifty quid, if that, of scrap

I was SSAC and we had nothing to do with BSAC tho' we sometimes let them dive with us. Our standards and qualification tests were higher than theirs. I found that many 2nd class divers with BSAC were totally lost in open water and were a danger to themselves and buddy.

 

[cougie uk]

If anyone is in Belfast I recommend the Titanic exhibition for a very interesting afternoon out.

So good I've done it twice. And you can walk around the slipway where Titanic was built. It's tiny compared to the cruise liners you see nowadays.

Hope to god they find them safely.

 

[Dirk]

I certainly wouldn't have got in the thing! Do you think those on board will be found in time and would you take part in such a venture? 🤔

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65953872

No & no.

 

[Drago]

I'd love to visit the wreck if it were possible to do in a safe and respectful way, but parting with a large chunk of cash to risk my life in something our own @JhnBssll could build out of spit and kleenex would deffo not be worth it to me.

 

[Jameshow]

It's very small, smaller than many of the natural surface features of the seabed. How does sonar distinguish between a sub - or more likely just wreckage - and a boulder?

If it is at the wreck site it is in a debris field miles long. Even if they had sonar that could map the seabed the amount of processing required will take months.

Furthermore, sonar works best when reflected from the boundary of air and metal such as in a subs pressure hull rather than the metal itself. If the sub is ruptured then the resolution required to locate it with sonar, notwithstanding all the poi ts raised above, will need to be many times higher.

A better chance of sonar locating it on the surface, but wave clutter still makes that a very difficult proposition even for military assets.

Think of it this way. The Titanic is big, real big, and even knowing within a fairly tight radius where it was they were unable to locate it with sonar or magnetometer despite years or trying. It took months of effort trailing an ROV on a search pattern to locate it. Knowing how difficult that was, now Imagine trying to do the same with a tiny sub.

They might get lucky. There is an oil pipeline layer on site with an experienced ROV crew - although I doumt theyre train in search theory, which is largely an exercise in mathematical probability - and other ROV assets are on the way but barring some great stroke of good fortune I think it will not be found for a long time, if ever.

Would sonar react differently to a carbon hull to a steel one??

 

[Drago]

That's beyond my knowledge, but quite possibly. It's used as one of many RAM materials in aircraft, and may also behave differently with acoustics.

Certainly a mighty good question, and all I can say is 'perhaps'.

 

[Tenkaykev]

Interesting article with a link to a news report from a reporter who traveled in it and interviewed the guy who commissioned it.


https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023...anic-used-a-30-logitech-gamepad-for-steering/