More of what we do

I love to see the variety of different things that we all do when we can't dive!

Me, I build stuff. All kinds of stuff. Everything from colored copper artwork, to the 22' aluminum catamaran that I dive from.

This is my 1976 Bridgeport milling machine, and my 1962 South Bend Lathe. They are relatively new to me, and still need a little restorative lovin' at the moment. But properly taken care of, they should be turning out good stuff in the hands of my grandkids.

A bit of the copper stuff:

I tend to have a short attention span, and will throw myself in a different direction every now and then. The copper is fun because most of the pieces are small and don't take too long. Staying focussed for the two years it took to finish the catamaran was brutal, but it is a SWEET dive platform. Here are a couple of old pics taken during construction that I scanned. I'll have to take some newer shots showing all the custom features next time I dive.

Quote from FREEK

:eek::eek::eek: H O L Y S H I T! ! ! ! ! ! :eek::eek::eek:

That's :crazy:and:thumbsup2: at the same time!!!!!! You just floored me!!!! Did the neighbors give you funny looks???:D

They thought I was building an airplane. All it's really missing is a 50-cal. on the bow. Now THAT would keep boats away from my divers!

Got it back late Saturday Night! :hooray:

I'm very happy, considering the power company had previously estimted up to two weeks!

Quote from FREEK

That's good to hear!!:thumbsup2: Have you been out to check out damage?

Nope. Quite a mess to clean up in the yard, but no damage.:thumbsup2:

Got the old man to take a few more pics while he had it on the trailer.

It rides very well at just about any speed you want to run in seas up to 3' or so. We don't intentionally go out if the seas are over 4', but I have been caught in 6' seas in thunderstorms. At those heights, the period of the waves becomes an issue. It is still only a 22' hull, so you have to be carful not to go so fast down one wave that you stuff the bow into the back of the next wave. One nice thing is that it doesn't really have a "planing speed" where it suddenly pops up out of the water. So if the waves are breaking, I just throttle back to about 16-18 knots to match the seas, which is hard to do in most mono-hulls without bogging down.

The two widely spaced motors are great when circling a small wreck, or any other time that you want great maneuverability. I can reverse one engine, forward one engine, and turn in my own radius like a tug boat.

I designed it from scratch, did the calculations, drew all the plans, and did all the welding. I did incorporate different features from other cats that I saw. By comparison, none of the dimensions on this style of catamaran are nearly as critical as on the high speed version.