This week, we have all been thinking of Submarines more than Captain Nemo was. So here are an engaging set of links on that topic.
LINK USED SUBMARINES FOR SALE
LINK–An orphaned & Abandoned Submarine
What?
Too soon?
I’d say so.
Used Submarine? No thanks. Not interested in a long tube that used to be full of Seamen.
It’s never too soon for jokes about the recently deceased.
Interesting.
I’ve just finished up a book about the only US Navy Sub that was privately owned (if you don’t consider modern “museum” ships). It was bought by two politicians from Revere, Massachusetts from the scrapyard, towed to Revere Beach, pulled up on the sand, and exhibited at a quarter apiece (ten cents for kids). After a year and a half they had it towed (the engines had been disabled when the Navy sold it. Also, the dive controls had been locked and the batteries all removed. What they had was basically a sub-shaped steel float) all the way up the Atlantic to the St. Lawrence, then up the St. Lawrence (before the Seaway had been built), through four of the Great Lakes to Chicago for the 1933 Centennial Exposition, where it was a big hit.
The sub was, by the terms of the 1930 London Naval treaty, to be scuttled by 1936, but they found a loophole in that, then finagled a legal way to have new engines installed. They sailed her back out into the Atlantic and exhibited her in ports up and down the coast, getting involved in half a dozen legal cases (one of which went all the way to the Supreme Court) until WWII happened. At that point it became unhealthy to be sailing a submarine around, abnd they were almost fired on. They tried to give the sub back to the Navy, but they didn’t want her, so she was sent back to the same scrapyard she was rescued from…
…and at the last minute the Navy decided they COULD use her, diverted her to the Philadelphia Naval Yard, and fixed her so she could dive again.
It’s a wild story. You can find references to the S-49 (she had no other name, aside from the hull designation SS-160) all over the internet, along with pictures. But none of the websites tells the whole story, and virtually all of them have significant errors (she was never painted yellow, for instance).
I’m still looking for a publisher or agent. The book is tentatively entitled Mystery Ship
Until recently I though that submersibles for coral reef tourism might be a popular item. I was thinking you could make a long transparent tube like the tunnel under the big aquarium at SeaWorld (if that was the place I went in Florida). It would rely on a support ship connection, not go that deep down, need a lot of ballast to descend that could be dumped in an emergency, probably just use sand for that. I don’t think this week would be a good one to look for funding on this.
There are dozens of subs about as you describe tooling around the Caribbean already. No need for start-up funding.
Heck, there are so many in the USA that they need a 10 best page to filter out the so-so tours from the great tours.