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Man shows deep devotion to sub project
Posted on Sat, Feb. 02, 2008
By ROB BUSWEILER
Key West Citizen
BOOT KEY, Fla. --
No one lives in this yellow submarine, but Marathon resident Duane Shelton hopes that one day his homemade underwater vessel will be ready to explore depths of up to 1,500 feet.
Tucked away in the protected canals of Boot Key, the bright yellow submarine sticks out among the rustic fishing docks and dense mangrove forests on the mostly uninhabited island. The submarine's color is not a tribute to the classic Beatles song; Shelton simply got a deal on some surplus paint.
An engineer for Sea Air Land Technologies in Marathon, Shelton is accustomed to creating products such as solar panels and wind generators. For the past 11 years, he has spent his free time working on an entirely different project: a 92-foot, 100-ton steel submarine.
Shelton said 11 years after buying a pressure vessel from a scrapyard in Chicago, he is nearing the final stages of his project. Ask him when he first started thinking about submarines and you'll get a response that dates back even further.
"When I was a little kid, I used to fill my bathtub up to the top and use a hose to breathe under water," Shelton said, standing underneath the Vaca Key side of Boot Key Bridge. "Since then I have always been thinking about submarines."
On weekends when the weather is fair, Shelton rows across Boot Key channel on a homemade raft no bigger than a bookshelf. The irony runs thick, as one looks at the sight of a man rowing a primitive raft across the channel on his way to building a state-of-the-art submarine.
"I've made it across seven times and, God willing, hopefully today will be eight," Shelton said before hopping on the boat.
Shelton is just one of the many people who have been affected by the closure of Boot Key bridge. The longtime Marathon resident said he used to go out and work on the submarine most nights after work, but now is relegated to sunny weekends when the wind is calm.
The bridge's closure is just the latest in a series of twists and turns Shelton has had to face in the 11 years he has been working on the submarine. Just getting the pressure vessel that would wind up being the hull was an adventure. The company first wanted more than $100,000 for the steel tube, but he talked them down to about $10,000.
"Then I had to figure out how to get it down here," Shelton said.
By train, truck and barge, it found its way to Shelton's dock space on Boot Key. The physics major then found out it would cost at least $750,000 just to apply for the federal application needed to use it as a commercial and educational enterprise. He eventually plans to bring it down to Honduras and operate dive and educational tours there.
Unlike the commercial tour sub that operated out of Key West for a short stint last year, Shelton's sub will have no windows. Instead, he plans to mount cameras on the outside of the vessel and beaming those images to flat-screen TVs inside the giant tube. The back of the sub will have a pressurized chamber to allow for deep-sea launching and retrieving of scuba divers.
The project is a work in progress, although Shelton hopes to have it ready for sea tests sometime next year. Until then, the big yellow sub will remain tucked away on Boot Key, with Shelton happily working inside.
Information from: Key West Citizen, http://www.keysnews.com
Posted on Sat, Feb. 02, 2008
By ROB BUSWEILER
Key West Citizen
BOOT KEY, Fla. --
No one lives in this yellow submarine, but Marathon resident Duane Shelton hopes that one day his homemade underwater vessel will be ready to explore depths of up to 1,500 feet.
Tucked away in the protected canals of Boot Key, the bright yellow submarine sticks out among the rustic fishing docks and dense mangrove forests on the mostly uninhabited island. The submarine's color is not a tribute to the classic Beatles song; Shelton simply got a deal on some surplus paint.
An engineer for Sea Air Land Technologies in Marathon, Shelton is accustomed to creating products such as solar panels and wind generators. For the past 11 years, he has spent his free time working on an entirely different project: a 92-foot, 100-ton steel submarine.
Shelton said 11 years after buying a pressure vessel from a scrapyard in Chicago, he is nearing the final stages of his project. Ask him when he first started thinking about submarines and you'll get a response that dates back even further.
"When I was a little kid, I used to fill my bathtub up to the top and use a hose to breathe under water," Shelton said, standing underneath the Vaca Key side of Boot Key Bridge. "Since then I have always been thinking about submarines."
On weekends when the weather is fair, Shelton rows across Boot Key channel on a homemade raft no bigger than a bookshelf. The irony runs thick, as one looks at the sight of a man rowing a primitive raft across the channel on his way to building a state-of-the-art submarine.
"I've made it across seven times and, God willing, hopefully today will be eight," Shelton said before hopping on the boat.
Shelton is just one of the many people who have been affected by the closure of Boot Key bridge. The longtime Marathon resident said he used to go out and work on the submarine most nights after work, but now is relegated to sunny weekends when the wind is calm.
The bridge's closure is just the latest in a series of twists and turns Shelton has had to face in the 11 years he has been working on the submarine. Just getting the pressure vessel that would wind up being the hull was an adventure. The company first wanted more than $100,000 for the steel tube, but he talked them down to about $10,000.
"Then I had to figure out how to get it down here," Shelton said.
By train, truck and barge, it found its way to Shelton's dock space on Boot Key. The physics major then found out it would cost at least $750,000 just to apply for the federal application needed to use it as a commercial and educational enterprise. He eventually plans to bring it down to Honduras and operate dive and educational tours there.
Unlike the commercial tour sub that operated out of Key West for a short stint last year, Shelton's sub will have no windows. Instead, he plans to mount cameras on the outside of the vessel and beaming those images to flat-screen TVs inside the giant tube. The back of the sub will have a pressurized chamber to allow for deep-sea launching and retrieving of scuba divers.
The project is a work in progress, although Shelton hopes to have it ready for sea tests sometime next year. Until then, the big yellow sub will remain tucked away on Boot Key, with Shelton happily working inside.
Information from: Key West Citizen, http://www.keysnews.com