11/07/2017
Now I have finally recovered from my ears, I thought I could treat everyone to an account of the races. Enjoy!:
The 6-person BURST team (Bath University Racing Submarine Team) has just returned from the 14th International Submarine Race at Carderock Naval Base in Maryland, USA. Our submarine Menrva Mk2 achieved a speed of 1.82 knots and completed 2 runs - something most teams do not achieve - out of its attempted 5. Going out to the competition, we had one goal - to complete a run and therefore maintain our presence at the competitions. Now, with the 'Executive Summary' out of the way, read on and I can tell you more about our crazy time at the 14th International Submarine Races.
At first, our goal looked unattainable. The team was struck with aweful luck from the offset as our luggage that contained our propellers was lost for four days by the (very-budget) airline that we used. Let that be a lesson. After the team managed to hunt down our propellers (and clothes) and after safety checks were passed, Menrva Mk2 was ready for her first race on Wednesday morning.
During the race, it was found, rather blatantly, that the heavy nose-end was an over-compensation. Menrva slowly started to drop from its starting position and she soon hit the bottom - this did not discourage our pilot Dan Evans, however. Determined, Dan pushed on and continued to deposit the paint of Menrva's underside on to the race-basin below. After 40 meters of scraping along the bottom Dan managed to hurtle towards the right wall, only to be stopped by a timing gate. Clearly our recovered carbon fibre propellers were doing their job - allowing Dan to explore the bottom of the basin.
With this interesting first run under our belt, the team worked hard to make Menrva race ready for Thursday. Our second run was reasonably successful. Dan managed to get to the end of the course..... however, 80% of the run was conducted on the surface making the run illegitimate. To add to the frustration of the team, Dan's "immense power" managed to dislodge the drivetrain which resulted in almost a day of repairs. Again, the team pulled together and managed to get Menrva race ready before the end of the day. Another race was attempted with the diminishing number of race days firmly in the team's minds. At first, she looked promising; drifting to the left maybe, but promising. However, Menrva again started to float down towards the bottom of the race-basin. As she moved out of sight of the support divers, she was precariously close to the bottom, but it could still be salvaged. Unfortunately, the slow drift to the left had transformed into a 'full-lock' veer into the left wall. The run was aborted at a measly 40 meters again. This truly brought the morale of the team down - not only had we failed all three of our attempted runs, but the reasons we had failed them were anything but consistent. Nevertheless, the team still rallied together, overhauling the control system to be much more responsive and getting the buoyancy perfect. All of our hopes were on tomorrow.
This was it. Everything in the submarine was perfect and Dan was raring to go and do us proud. Descending upon the submarine to 'God Save The Queen' and trailing the Union Jack behind him (a sight to behold I assure you) Dan was Locked & Loaded in Menrva Mk2 and Ready to Race. This time, there was no veer to the left or the right; there was no bolt to the surface or scraping along the bottom. She ran straight and true, mid-water column and flew over the start line. Everything was looking great as she moved out of sight, so the support divers surfaced. To our immense surprise, she had made it most of the way down the race-basin in no time at all. But then, we could see the US Navy safety divers in their Zodiac dinghy slow down to a crawl. Had something gone wrong? It couldn't be an aborted run, since the divers remained in their dinghy. But why are they going so slow? The team hoped as one entity that Dan could take her over the line. The commentator retained the suspense in the basin by emphasising how close we were to the end of the course. And then, over the loudspeakers, we hear: "Menrva has crossed the finish line". Whooping and cheering (and 'Hollering' as they say in the US) erupted in the basin. Menrva Mk2 had completed her first legitimate run.
After Dan was out of the basin, he told us about how the drivetrain had locked up 20 meters from the end and how he drifted over the finish line. For the nth time, the team banded together and fixed Menrva up. Our aim was to get a final successful run in - that would be the cherry on top of an exhilarating week of racing. Once she was back in the water, a similar launch to our first successful race was achieved. Again, the divers surfaced to see her zooming down the course. And again, we see the safety dinghy slow to a craw... what could it be this time? The team braced itself for another agonisingly slow crawl towards the finish line. But this time, the team hear the dismaying tone of an aborted run. How? How could Dan have bottled it at the final hurdle? Dissapointed and defeated, the team exited the basin to start packing our base of operations away. But, just as we thought their was no hope, the race director over the loudspeaker shouts for us. "Menrva? University of Bath?", she calls. We turn our heads dejectedly expecting more bad news. She continues, "Sorry for the misinformation. Your boat veered violently to the right in the last 5 minutes and it looked like you stopped just short of the finish. That last run was actually successful". The whooping, cheering and 'hollering' returned to the basin. Finally, the team was satisfied.
This year has been an immense experience for BURST (even if a dislodged joystick almost cost us our last successful run). We managed a successful run with a retrofitted and modified submarine on a 100% logistical cost budget. This is a transitional year for BURST as a whole, I guarantee that we will be more successful in years to come, but I cannot guarantee that the races will be as exciting as this one.
If you are interested in joining our team and being part of the amazing camaraderie that you just read about, come to the BURST lab in 4E 1.23 or email me: [email protected].
I will post pictures in a later post.
Still yet to come: Lessons learnt from ISR 14, Our own ISR 14 video and the official competition one & A look at Ceto our new submarine and how we are funding her
Kevin
