Recently I was thinking about how we have commercial airplanes and ships, but also private ones- that there is a market for people who like to fly/sail/etc for recreation. But I haven’t heard of people building submarines for private use.
I heard on a TV show a while back that there was a company that chartered submarine cruises, but I’ve never seen people building submarines to go exploring the depths on their own. Considering how big and fancy yachts can get, as well as celebrities having private jets and such, it doesn’t seem that impractical that a person could have their own submarine.
Now I understand that puttering around in a submarine is much more dangerous than driving a boat on the surface. Obviously things like insurance, safety, and nautical laws would be a big issue.
IIRC, some years ago, the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog offered his-and-hers mini submarines for an appropriately exorbitant price.
Submarines aren’t really that practical a form of travel for the average (wealthy) person. Battery-powered subs can only operate for a short period of time before recharging, diesel-powered subs have to stay on the surface (or at least within the length of the snorkel) to get air for the engines – which pretty much defeats the allure of having a sub – and you can figure out the problems with nuclear-powered subs yourself.
It seems a two-seater recreational sub is ready as a prototype (see Subeo site).
Also a German shipbuilding engineer is building his private submarine (16 m long; 57 metric tons displacement; crew of four; cost=price of two single-family homes; started in 2000, expects to have it operational in 2005). The second article states that the only license he will need to drive his sub is the Sportbootführerschein, i.e. the license needed to command a recreational boat with engine power > 3.68 kW in German waters.
{url=http://www.euronaut.org/]Here’s a site with specs and more pictures of the German D-I-Y sub in the article above.
In the mood for something sportier? How about the Gemini 3-man by Subeo. If you want shose idea of style is a cross beterrn a jet and a missile (instead of a cross between a goldfish and a Star Wars character) you might look into the Deep Flight Aviator by Hawkes Oecean Technology, which was recently launched in San Francisco Bay. For raw luxury, though, I guess you have to go with teh Phoenix.
Why would you want your own submarine? Well, my personal favorite reason would be the recent Russian work on launching orbital vehicles from subs (C’mon, you know what my next self-contained pressurized vehicle would have to be). Just cruise out to international waters, and it’s “see ya on the funny pages[1]”
If I buy one of these, can I legally equip it with torpedoes? Wouldn’t be much fun having a personal sub unless I can occasionally attack the shipping lanes. Mmmmmm, MK-50!
