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Took advantage of good weather yesterday to risk a real water test for my rebuilt Marlin. The water up here in WI is still a bit brisk.
Initial run was great, good trim surfaced, a tendency to nose dive when diving, but overall went well. I checked ballast trim a a couple times over the 1/2 hour I had it in the water to make sure I didn't have any leaks creeping up on me. All good. Was running one more dive and bringing it in when all of a sudden it rolled over to port all the way on its side, as I started the dive and it headed straight down. As in prop in the air before that went under.
It was trimmed for positive bouncy, so I gave it a minute or two to pop up. No joy. In case it dove into weeds, I tried reversing. No luck, then thrashing the prop to break it free. No luck.
Into the water I went. A kayaker gave me a hand looking, but after 90 minutes swimming the area with snorkel gear I called no joy. Visibility, even with a 1300 lumen dive light was not good that late in the evening.
It was during the search that another submersible object was seen in the area where the sub went down - a large otter.. That would explain why it rolled over and took a plunge.. He was happily slipping around the kayak and having fun watching the developments.
Went back this morning. Overcast, but better light angle. Found the Marlin on my first out and back. sitting about 7' down bobbing on the bottom in a sandy hole. Pump section of the WTC had partially flooded overnight (? - it trimmed up fine on the surface with empty tank right before the dive). Still checking everything over - need to make sure a hose didn't let go when it tried to pump out on loss of radio contact.
I need to look at adding an external LED to this thing to aid with recover - I did that on my R10.
Initial run was great, good trim surfaced, a tendency to nose dive when diving, but overall went well. I checked ballast trim a a couple times over the 1/2 hour I had it in the water to make sure I didn't have any leaks creeping up on me. All good. Was running one more dive and bringing it in when all of a sudden it rolled over to port all the way on its side, as I started the dive and it headed straight down. As in prop in the air before that went under.
It was trimmed for positive bouncy, so I gave it a minute or two to pop up. No joy. In case it dove into weeds, I tried reversing. No luck, then thrashing the prop to break it free. No luck.
Into the water I went. A kayaker gave me a hand looking, but after 90 minutes swimming the area with snorkel gear I called no joy. Visibility, even with a 1300 lumen dive light was not good that late in the evening.
It was during the search that another submersible object was seen in the area where the sub went down - a large otter.. That would explain why it rolled over and took a plunge.. He was happily slipping around the kayak and having fun watching the developments.
Went back this morning. Overcast, but better light angle. Found the Marlin on my first out and back. sitting about 7' down bobbing on the bottom in a sandy hole. Pump section of the WTC had partially flooded overnight (? - it trimmed up fine on the surface with empty tank right before the dive). Still checking everything over - need to make sure a hose didn't let go when it tried to pump out on loss of radio contact.
I need to look at adding an external LED to this thing to aid with recover - I did that on my R10.