Osmium Steele
05-15-12, 12:26 PM
November '39.
Hunting in AM52, submerged at 25 meters, speed 2 kts and the boat starts to rock and roll. Must be a nice blow going up top. Been there, done that. Swings of 5 -7 meters are not uncommon, even at this depth.
After a couple of hours our depth starts swinging wildly. One time we even broached the surface! All with no input.
I decided to stay submerged and let it blow over, but it didn't. With batteries at 50% and atmosphere at 5% we surface in the middle of the storm.
The engineering crew moved to the diesel room, and it took 10 more minutes before the bridge crew moved to the tower. When they did, the diesels would not respond. They remained manned, but neither engine would start. Standard propulsion, charging batteries, nothing worked.
Rang up every bell, even selected various speeds manually, nothing worked.
Occasionally, I'd see the engines rev, only to stop a few seconds later due to the depth. The boat simply would not remained surfaced long enough for the diesels to run. Even though surfaced (even blew ballast once) we were still submerging to 20 meters at times. Atmosphere readings (oxygen) ran down to 0% then jumped to 100% while we managed to stay near the surface for 30 seconds or so.
Running GWX Gold with no other weather mods. Never seen weather this bad.
After another 12 hours or so of this, the seas calmed enough to allow normal operation, charged the batteries and compressed air and submerged.
That was nasty.
Hunting in AM52, submerged at 25 meters, speed 2 kts and the boat starts to rock and roll. Must be a nice blow going up top. Been there, done that. Swings of 5 -7 meters are not uncommon, even at this depth.
After a couple of hours our depth starts swinging wildly. One time we even broached the surface! All with no input.
I decided to stay submerged and let it blow over, but it didn't. With batteries at 50% and atmosphere at 5% we surface in the middle of the storm.
The engineering crew moved to the diesel room, and it took 10 more minutes before the bridge crew moved to the tower. When they did, the diesels would not respond. They remained manned, but neither engine would start. Standard propulsion, charging batteries, nothing worked.
Rang up every bell, even selected various speeds manually, nothing worked.
Occasionally, I'd see the engines rev, only to stop a few seconds later due to the depth. The boat simply would not remained surfaced long enough for the diesels to run. Even though surfaced (even blew ballast once) we were still submerging to 20 meters at times. Atmosphere readings (oxygen) ran down to 0% then jumped to 100% while we managed to stay near the surface for 30 seconds or so.
Running GWX Gold with no other weather mods. Never seen weather this bad.
After another 12 hours or so of this, the seas calmed enough to allow normal operation, charged the batteries and compressed air and submerged.
That was nasty.