Trial #2 Finally after quite a while in dry dock, my Albacore was ready for sailing. This time around, I am running a new WTC design with improved bulkheads. I'm expecting good things as the WTC appears to seal very tightly. I have also added the decals, a fake antenna and painted portions of the hull to increase the visibility of the submarine while it's under water. | |
With the screens that I placed over the bottom vent holes, I noticed that it takes a few seconds for the water to flood the hull. |  |
| I checked the ballast system immediately since I was worried that the internal t-valve may not work correctly because it took some abused when I removed it from the original WTC. |  |
There was no need to worry as the ballast system worked fine. The boat is ballasted a bit heavy. I set the submerged level about an inch higher in my test tank. I'm not 100% sure why it is lower here but it could be caused by picking up some dirt in the hull. My test lake was very low and shallow on this day so it was hard to keep the boat from scraping the bottom. I still have not set up the PBU unit so once I get that in, I will have to set the ballast again anyway. | 
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| This is a movie showing the ballast tanks going from empty to full. The boat is a little bit to heavy so it sinks farther then it should. |  Click here or on the picture to play the movie (2.4 meg) |
The boat's speed was a bit slower then I remembered. It may be time to get a new one as this one has been though the mill. | 
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| On the surface, the boat preformed well and had a decent turning radius. |  |
| The decals really add a lot to the looks. |  |
| I wish the water was clearer, it sure makes it hard sailing a submerged boat! |  |
| Cruising with the ballast tanks fully flooded, I noticed that the boat tended to rise a little. I probably need to adjust the rear dive planes a bit. |  |
| Here is the first dive of the boat, it went down smoothly but was hard to keep level. I believe that my APC/dive planes are adjusted with too much upward bias. Unfortunately, I did not bring any tools with me so I could that adjust it. |  |
| Even though the boat was out of adjustment, it still dove easily. It was tough to keep it under and take pictures of it at the same time, especially since the lake was so shallow. |  |
| I ran the boat for 45 minutes off of an old pack of 6 cell 1300 batteries. This included running the ballast tank motor quite a bit. Not a bad run time at all but I will be making another battery pack. |  |
End of Trial #2 After running the boat for 45 minutes and opened up the WTC. It was bone dry, I did not see a drop or even a molecule of water inside! The new bulkheads really do a good job. Very cool! I need to adjust the rear dive planes a bit lower to be able to keep the boat under easier but other then that the boat ran flawlessly. The run time was good especially considering the batteries I am using. I have to call this trial a success! | What's Next I'm going to hook up the PBU system and give that a whirl. This will require re-ballasting the boat again but it was sitting a bit low anyway. I'm also going to adjust the ADC so that the dive planes are a bit lower when the boat is level. I'm so happy that everything worked without a snag!. |
