Trouser trout & Dive Sled help!!

Yes ol trouser trouts back, after like a year or mores hiatus from this mongrel keyboard of mine!!.

I need help to find something....

Tis a long story (aren't mine always?)

Puter up n died over a year ago - so trouty went ta - ta's for a while!

Then my ol dad - he up n died too - so I been kinda busy lookin after his estate etc, and tidying up his affairs.

Then the missus ran away with her boss at work after 26 years of blissfull (for me) marriage!

Before that - the dog died too - heck - it's been one hell of a year!

I'm thinkin abuying country and western records, and playin em all backwards till my ol man, dog and missus all come back! Heck - ya gotta laugh - if you didn't laugh you'd cry, and I already done plenty a that!

So - I did what any guy in a mid life crisis would do - I went out and borrowed about (another) $100K and spent it all in a week cheering myself up!!!

You know - we are born into this life with NOTHING and luckily, bein the frugal sort I am - I still got most of it left!

So - I now own a 25 ft charter boat I always wanted and a nice land cruiser turbo diesel to haul it all over the country with!

What I want to do - is buy, builld, steal, beg or borrow - a couple of Dive Sleds that I can tow scuba divers on behind my boat at slow speeds of say 4 knots or so...

Something like an underwater aeroplane, where two divers slide in side by side - one steers with an elevator and aeleron controls, and the other hangs on for the ride. It needs to be enclosed enough that they won't become great white shark turds, if one gets interested, but open enough they can see lots and "let go" (return to the surface) if for any reason they have had enough and want to quit their underwater flying experience early for any reason.

I plan to insert an underwater digital camera in the front of the dive sleds and run a cables back up the tow lines to the boat, where I will burn DVD's disc of their dive for them to take away with them!!.

I can't find a design of anything like I'm imagining anywhere on the net - then I thought of good ol boat-design.net, and the likes of Yipster and others who are pretty creative thinkers.(Will?)

Anyone got any idea's on a design?

Maybe something I can fold and weld up in aluminum...(er aluminium for us downunder).?

I looked on the net but only found self powered dive scooters and sleds that take you straight up and down a tied stationery cable for deep dive record attempts etc.
Back in the good ol days - we used to call such things manta boards etc....but today they seem to have all but dissapeared?

I'll be greatfull for any help.

Thanks in advance - Cheers n beers!
trouser trout!

[yipster]

trouty live goes on and good to see ya around again but my dog also died, girlfrends leave and come back just as easy, so sometimes i have 3 than none scrubbing the boat. ah whatever, they have a will of their own and i sortof learned to live with that.

did i tell you bout the only thrue element? i think its H, the rest is made of it.

i saw a new electric "fish" that looked neat ah wait that isnt against great whites... there is the personal-submarines site or make a rough drawing and we think and schetch along...

That was an interesting link - many thanks! (Not quite what I was after but close - enough to get the creative juices flowing anyway!)

Sketch is no problem - however - getting a sketch into the 'puter is another matter!

I'll have tp see what I can come up with!

Cheers!

[yipster]

http://www.cool-plans.com/cpuwsled.htm

Obviously your puter search skills are greater than mine!

Thats essentially it in a nutshell Yipster - conceptually it is what I had imagined...I would of course probably manufacture something a little more James Bond like...just for the heck of it (gotta impress the white pointers enough to be too scared to bite!!!).

Thanks again Yipster - I'll snaffel a copy of that photo if it's OK with you.!

Cheers!

[hang5]

Trouty,

when I was a kid my brother and I built one out of 2 x 4's and 2x6's
with bronze hinged wings made of plywood and with a wooden handle on each wing. It worked absolutely great and we nearly killed each other many times. I rammed into a seamount once and had a sudden unplanned dismount. We could do rolls and dive fairly deep (obviously the longer the line the deeper the dive) I have thought about it recently and wonder if you couldn't make a lexan pod with an aluminum frame for your head and torso. your forearms and your legs would be exposed. I shouldn't need to mention that this is so dangerous as to be unimaginable as a manufactured product in todays litiginous world.

Women come, women go. She didn't deserve ya man.

But losing a good dog...I am very sorry to hear about that.

Hang5

Thanks Hang 5

Yes - build something I must - alluminium and lexan probably. I actually wan't it to look "something" like a manta ray from front on and top down....

You know how it is with commercial ventures - how things "look" is important to marketing..

I'm still workin on it...

Cheers