Concrete Submarine Yacht prototype 20 tons tested 1996
 
Freeing the concrete submarine hull from the crane at lake Atter. You can see the upper acrylic viewport which is used as hatch at the same time. You also can see part of the side viewport at this photo the hull is still floating high in the water as there is still no ballast in the boat and the Tower (sail) which is not part of the pressure hull will be installed later.
 
From this point on the hull stays in water during decades. All outfitting is done on the anchorplace. There is no need to take this hull out of the water each season as you would do with a typical surface yacht. Similar as bridge foundations or submarine tunnels our hull are built to stay in water once and for ever. This means a MAYOR reduction in maintainance cost. As only piece of infrastructure needed is a bouy and the red plastic boat to reach the anchorplace.
 
Bringing the Submarine to Water at Lake Atter in Austria. Crane, heavy lifting equipment, building site in Thauer,Tirol. Watch the acrylic viewports, twin propellers, acrylic hatch, tower still not on the sub to fit transport size. The whole design is made for maintainance on anchorplace even viewports can be changed without taking the submarine out of water, so can screws and shafts, rudder and all other parts.
 
 
As the sub was constructed miles from the next water i had to limit its size and weight to the limits of street transport. As you see from the photos a perfect blimp shape in concrete is possible.
 
In spite of theories discussed in forums concrete hulls are absolutly not delicate for transport. The boat was transported 200km on a normal Truck to its final destination. The handling is as delicate as handling of bridge or tunnel parts made from reinforced concrete
 
The prototype submarine was tested in 2 different configurations of the interior. The configuration you see on this picture is the yachting configuration with 1 seat on each viewport. To make the interior design easyly adatptable i had light and basic pinewood divisions as you see in foto below later i opted for a ballast configuration in a flat floor and a engine room division with a massive concrete wall of 10 cm for noise dampening. (see below)

Inside the Prototype

Other than many people would think the inside is not a dark humed space As you see on photo you have plenty of light inside the hull the coming from hatch on the top and from the viewports on the sides and front. Inside view from front part to engine room door. Batteries, Tanks, Ballast are hidden in the wood furniture in this configuration.

At difference some might think in the first place the living space inside the submarine hull is full of light that comes in from the viewports. There is also absolutly no condensation and no seeping of water in the hull. Hulls built with this method convert to submarine yachts with a "dry bilge" under any weather condition from arctic to tropic. (read more on condensation and ventilation at mainsite)

Outfitting on Anchorplace

Construction went on on anchor place. Machinery, Batteries, Tanks, Ballast put the sub to a deeper final floating line. It is a dificult task to calculate the flotation of a sub as any gram and also its distribution counts - completing it on anchorplace makes it easy
Final Status The submarine now with its tower (sail), machinery and Ballast completed the hull almost completly under waterline.The only Infrastructure needed is the little red boat for transfer to anchoplace. The submarine yacht fits well in the field of anchored sailing yachts all of about the same size. As this is a alpine lake the submarine experiences a wide range of different ambient conditions from winter with ice on the sub to summer with 35 degrees tropical temperature. Also storms up to beaufort 10. It turns out to keep a fine dry ambient at watertemperature in any of those conditions. Its maintainance cost is lower that that of the sourrounding sailing yachts as it is less influenced by wind and weather due to having most of the hull below the water. Only maintainance needed is to scratch algea from hull with a rope and from vieworts with sponge on a stick every month
I come with the car from vienna, put the loaded battery block and the small hand diesel generator into the submarine - take the sub from the bouy and i am ready to dive This is a lot of fun and a new aproach to weekend yachting.
 
Submarine prototype in "tourist configuration" maximum of 6 passengers 2 passengers comparting a 50cm diameter viewport. The first configuration i tested was the expedition configuration with 2 seats on side viewports and 1 seat on front viewport you see in the photos above. In first configuration the division to engine room was made from pinewood (see photo above). In the later configuration (tourist) i had ballast in a flat floor on deepest point of the hull and a concrete wall of 10cm as division for engine room for noise dampening when going under diesel.
return to : www.concretesubmarine.com