The “Manned” Aspect of Submersibles
The most significant omission of submersible components in the the following chapters in the human component. The Deep Submersible Pilot Association and the Navy’s Submarine Development Group One have defined the minimal requirements for an operator or pilot. Chapter 12, herein, tabulates the number and types of operating and support personnel for selected vehicles. Unfortunately, all of these fall quite quite short in actually defining the nature and qualityies of the people who keep the system running efficiently and safely. Indeed, if one were to list the desirable attributes of a submersible crewman – and the crew includes support as well as operating personnel – the final product would seem unattainable.First, for the most part submersibles work far out at sea or in other isolated places where public admiration is not the rule. Secondly, photographers, press agents and media representatives are generally unaware of submersible activities until there is an emergency, and these are quite rare. Thirdly, working at sea in arduous, frustrating, continuous and, in the submersible business, calls for the skill of a seaman, an engineer, a diver and a master mariner. The point is that the personnel must be highly-skilled, dedicated individuals who are willing to spend a good portion of their life on a pitching, rolling, benevolent prison. The pay in not fantastic and residuals for television advertisements are unknown. One hundered percent successful missions are rare, and frustrating compromise is generally the rule.
So one might ask, where do you find such people and what do you offer? Quite frankly (and somewhat mysteriously), the find you and surmounting the challenge seems to be reward in itself. Commonality of background, such as education, technical training and the like, is not readily apparent. Most however, have spent a major portion of their adult life working with the sea, either in the Navy or with commercial enterprsies. Many, through various channels, simply drift into the submersible area, others specifically seek out the field. In either case, all have a capacity for hard work and seem to possess an unusually wide-ranging knowledge of seasmanship, diving, electronics and other skills related to submersibles. Admittedly it would be quite helpful to state the desirable background of characteristics to llok for in a submersible operator and the support crew, but, in the author’s experience, all are quite individualistic and, like submersibles themselves, defy categorization. Yet each seems to have a particular skill that contributes to a successful operation.
In this respect, an incident comes to mind of a lost current meter array retrieved by ALUMINAUT in 1967 off St. Croix, Virgin Islands. ALUMINAUT, at that time was the ultimate in deep submergence technology, it represented the best efforts of the best scientific and engineering expertise industry and academia could offer. In the course of retrieval it dived, made the necessary hookup and performed perfectly. The final step, however to reel the retrieving line onto the support ship. To complicate matters, when the array line began appearing at the surface it was a snarled and tangled mass of nylon rope, wire and current meters. At this point the knot-tying and load-handling talents of an ex-navy bosun, Mr. Doug Farrow, were required for several hours to successfully bring the spaghetti-like mess aboard.
The “manned” component, therefore, requires skills which range from those traceable to the Phoenicians to those developed in the scape age. Man’s ancestors, it is said, left the ocean in primordial times, since recorded history it is evident that he has tried, with some success, to return. In earluer days it was in wood and leather diving bells and suits; now it is in stell and plastic shells. Whatever the means, it has always been man; never machines, against the sea. The instruments, be they submersibles, submarines, towed devices or whatever, are inanimate, inert and functionless without the intervention of a human being. Regardless of its duration, if the return to the sea is to be successful, an arsenal of human talents must be drawn from pages of ancient and recent history. The know tier, the navigator, the mariner, the engineer and the theoretical scientist all share equal responsibilites and all can be found somewhere in the successful submersible system.
