Dealing with pirates

I guess the point is that the boat being chased is a more stable firing platform(at the stern) so watch out who you get behind.

 

yeah but as you say (as long as you see 'em) you got the advantage! Having the weapon helps to of course! No bloody good throwing potatoes at them!

 

How about hollow iron ingots to use as floating mines? Just use the ones left over from the "Brain Teaser" thread. They would be floating just below the waterline and would easily punch a hole in the lightweight plywood speedboats that pirates use in the Melacca Straight.

Mikey

 

Well yes a good Idea --sort of.

I thought that i had convinced you all that the 'pirates ' in Malacca straits are not a problem to yachties. I thought that as I hade put my 'life' on the line and sailed down the straights in a little nauticat 33 with nav lights and a brilliantly bright steamer and of course a huge british ensign, anchoring in deserted bays with the cabin light on almost welcoming guests on board that you would finally accept the fact they are not a problem--here any way.

I even took my camera to take a photo --and video of the pirate

What do I have to do? I cant make then attack me if they dont want to.

 

Pirates may not be a problem, just watch out for Mikey's iron ingots.

 

pirate problem solution submarine yacht

Hello Guys...
Let me suggest the ultimate solution for the piracy problem- Submarine Yachting. Yust shut the hatch go asleep - they can´t reach you whatever weapons or speedboats they might have... let them behind on surface...

My proyect : Concrete Submarine Yachts

Built one back in 1996

Worked Perfectly - Submarine Yachting is possible -




See the project - at:
http://tolimared.com/submarine

 

Sorry but that's like saying the solution to nuclear profilation is to build more bunkers.

Subs are cool, your sub is cool but it would be dark times indeed if this were a "selling point:.

 

pirates a problem - do it smart -

Lets see it different - the fact that the oceans are still a wild territory where not anything is always under control is a good thing isn't it ?...

So the remote or not so remote posibility of piracy if you choose a live aboard lifstyle is somehow romantic too...

like a caveman you might be in the position to present a fight for what is yours - there are means to do it bloody - and means to do it smart - there is no way to avoid it.

On a surface boat you can go for electroshock, teargas, a saferoom, traps, firearms, whatever - crying for help may not always be useful. What is indicated is that you think about that kind of stuff BEFORE it happens...

Kindest Regards
W Ellmer

 

Wellmer, I thought I read on your sumbarine report that you can only cruise for 3 hours.

That would be the fastest world trip on record.

Also I believe that most people who do sail around the world actually use sails I would think if your sub was fitted with a deisel engine it would be very expensive to run.

I would think that people that sail around the world, might actually like to see where they are going and enjoy the sunshine and salt sea spray, not cooped up in a floating bunker.

I have already suggested, mainly in jest that if you had a yacht that you could submerge so the pirates can't get to you it might be an idea.

I think there are people who would buy a submarine as there would be, that buy a jetski, but I would seriously do some real hard marketing research before you invest a lot of money in the project.

All the best
Poida

 

Simple words but strangley the words I have been grasping for. Well said wellmer. Some people cant tell the difference between reality and fiction thinking they can go in there like Bruce willis and live.

I mean these movies where they shoot the bad guys but the bad guys cant hit a barn door,--Oh dont get me going. And people believe that crap,-- no they do--- they think they can do the same. If you take a gun you will need a proctologist to see it again.

 

Hello Poida,
My submarine yacht has 3 hours battery then need reload - cruising limit is like any yacht tank limit - tanks in a submarine are bigger than in a similar surface boat.

This is not a bunker atmosphere - you have more daylight than in many surface yachts... 4 viewports of 50cm diameter.



see project at:
http:/tolimared.com/submarine

You can enyoy salt and sun - and sleep well without wave and pirate action at snorkel depth...

When you try to do market research for a submarine yacht you need to present a affordable concept... this is a concept study...

Kindest Regards
W.Ellmer

 

Anyhow as a submariner i am always thinking a little different - to get rid of prirates on a surface yacht i would use a safe room combined with a bottle of Chlor gas. This is a effective weapon was used as battle gas in ww1 - can be declared a water treatment unit no problems - can be deadly after a while - but leaves light burning if uninvited guests leave inmediatly - you will need a gas mask for engine room troubles anyhow - no shoot out just open - wait - pirates and cuccarachas leave your boat - exept they are equipped with gas mask like you...

 

More on concrete structures

Hi Wellmer,

I loved your sub! And I really like the idea of using concrete for the hull. Concrete being extremely strong in compression, which is what the hull experiences if the inside pressure is maintained at normal atmospheric. Is that what you did?

Anyway, on the subject of concrete, my Father did some extensive research on this wonderful material with the end of determining how to make it the strongest possible, and he learned some interesting things about this stuff in the process. Ultimately, he was able to produce concrete samples that seemed more like a very dense ceramic than normal concrete, and were extremely strong and tough. Much stronger than anything commercially available to this day. The process he used to do this was difficult to achieve, however.

Let me explain, in case this might prove useful to you.

First it is necessary to understand that concrete is comprised of many very small particles made anhydrous in an oven. When water is added these particles combine with the water chemically and produce crystalline “spikes” which grow from the surface of the particle. When particles are tightly packed these “spikes” mechanically interlock, and this is what gives the concrete it's strength. Obviously too much water will float the particles apart and weaken the resulting product. This is why different concretes with different compression ratings are available, the difference is the amount of water used in mixing (for the most part, there are other tricks that can be used as well). More water makes the mixing easer, but the result is weaker.

Considering this, my Father reasoned that the strongest concrete would result if the particles could be packed together so tightly that all particles were physically locked against each other before any water was introduced, and this was the object of the procedure he developed, which went as follows.

The dry concrete mix was put into a mold with an elastomeric surface somewhere that could be compacted against the concrete. The concrete mix (sometimes including fibers such as can be made from polypropylene for added tensile strength) was packed into the mold as tightly as possible and the mold sealed up. A vacuum was pulled on the contents of the mold to remove as much of the trapped air as possible. Atmospheric pressure would then pack the concrete into the mold via the elastomeric surface until it felt hard to the touch even before curing.

But let me digress a bit about this vacuum business. Evacuating a container with a bunch of tiny particles in it takes a very long time. This is because when gases normally flow through a hose or whatever, the individual molecules are bouncing off of one another and generally pushing each other along. If a vacuum is applied to a bunch of concrete powder, however, the mean distance between air molecules very quickly gets longer than the mean distance between particle surfaces . . . and individual molecules can no longer bang into each other and push things along. At that point they merely bounce around from surface to surface until they finally bounce out a hole and don't bounce back. If you want to evacuate an area of, say, one liter, this can take a couple of days of applied vacuum. The moral of this digression is that for practical purposes you need a good system for “distributing your vacuum” when making larger structures.

But to get back to the process, once the concrete is evacuated and compacted by atmospheric pressure the whole mold can be immersed in water and a few leaks introduced. When I have done this with transparent molding materials I have seen a wave of water slowly travel through the material until there were no discernible bubbles left. And, once water has been allowed to flow between the individual particles, there is no remaining pressure that would tend to separate them. They remain exactly as they were, compacted in the extreme.

At that point the normal “curing” process begins, and after a day or two the resulting material is incredibly strong.

Sorry to be so long-winded, but I suspect that this process could be applied to your submarine building. Anyway, I thought you would at least find it interesting. I used a similar process to produce very strong fiber composite materials several years ago (http://poiesisresearch.com/Pdfs/5,248,467.pdf). The trick there was the realization that the fibers could be packed into densities nearing 90% fiber if they were so packed before any resin was introduced. A piece of carbon-fiber/epoxy with 80 to 90% fiber density is fairly strong.

BillyDoc

 

Very interesting concept, BillyDoc. Sounds almost like the concrete engineer's equivalent to the vacuum infusion process used in fibreglass and carbon work. It'd be interesting to see it developed further.
Concrete really is an amazing material- cheap, strong and incredibly versatile. Seems a remarkably good choice for the submarine.

 

Billy Doc

Was any vibration introduced to the mold as the air was being evacuated?