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Minisubs inspire passion among South Floridians
Enthusiasts spend large sums to see the ocean floor up close and personal.
Robert Nolin | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted June 11, 2007
FORT LAUDERDALE -- In the seas off Fort Lauderdale, under rain-laden skies, a yellow anomaly sits on the surface: a submarine that won't submerge.
The Antipodes, all 15 feet and 15,000 pounds of her, refuses to sink. Even loaded with 58 extra pounds of lead bars, a 45-pound scuba tank and an old car battery. So instead of snapping photos of the sub's test voyage, Mike Spear became 165 pounds of human ballast.
He paddled a cheap inflatable dinghy from a chase boat to the sub, popped open the hatch and joined the pilot. In a flourish of bubbles, the Antipodes slipped beneath the waves.
"When he comes up, he's gonna be hooked," said friend and sub enthusiast Pete Hoffmann from the wheel of the chase boat.
Hoffmann, a 69-year-old Pompano Beach yacht broker, is one of about a half-dozen South Floridians fascinated to the point of obsession with custom-built minisubs. These deep-water sailors spend thousands of hours in garages and warehouses building, refitting, testing and marketing sophisticated submersibles.
Every once in a while they actually put one in the water. Then they get a double payoff: not just crafting a highly technical machine, but entering the exotic world at the sea floor.
Spear, 59, of Pompano Beach glimpsed that world through the 3-inch-thick acrylic viewports that bracket the Antipodes' bow and stern.
"I'm thinking this could get to be a habit," Spear said.
This was the first time the Antipodes' pilot, Ed Hoefing, 49, of Jupiter, had been in the sub, though he has spent about 3,000 hours working on it. That seems to be the main occupation of South Florida's sub cultists -- tinkering with the vessels so that they meet the requirements of the American Bureau of Shipping, which certifies a boat's mechanical and structural integrity.
Personal subs always seem to be yellow, more for visibility than in homage to the Beatles tune.
Parts aren't cheap. The Antipodes' signature features, those 58-inch-wide fore and aft viewports, cost more than $40,000 each; its four thrusters cost $10,000 each.
Hoffmann and his crew were aiming to have an ABS inspector certify the Antipodes as safe at 1,000 feet. Hoffmann had the sub hoisted from its Fort Lauderdale warehouse onto a flatbed, driven to a marina, lifted by crane and lowered into the water. A towboat dragged the vessel offshore. Hoffmann and Spear escorted it in a cabin cruiser. The day's outing cost Hoffmann about $2,500.
Hoefing made a test dive to 90 feet after enlisting Spear as ballast. The Antipodes was towed farther out, but Hoffmann was running out of time, and the depth was still shy of 1,000 feet. So Hoffmann opted for certification at whatever depth they were. ABS inspector Don Smith, arriving by rigid inflatable, clambered aboard. The sub disappeared into the deep. Long minutes pass. At 580 feet, Hoefing reported by radio: "Antipodes on the bottom, copy?"
"I copy," Hoffmann responded.
The vessel passed muster with Smith -- certified as safe at 580 feet.
Enthusiasts spend large sums to see the ocean floor up close and personal.
Robert Nolin | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted June 11, 2007
FORT LAUDERDALE -- In the seas off Fort Lauderdale, under rain-laden skies, a yellow anomaly sits on the surface: a submarine that won't submerge.
The Antipodes, all 15 feet and 15,000 pounds of her, refuses to sink. Even loaded with 58 extra pounds of lead bars, a 45-pound scuba tank and an old car battery. So instead of snapping photos of the sub's test voyage, Mike Spear became 165 pounds of human ballast.
He paddled a cheap inflatable dinghy from a chase boat to the sub, popped open the hatch and joined the pilot. In a flourish of bubbles, the Antipodes slipped beneath the waves.
"When he comes up, he's gonna be hooked," said friend and sub enthusiast Pete Hoffmann from the wheel of the chase boat.
Hoffmann, a 69-year-old Pompano Beach yacht broker, is one of about a half-dozen South Floridians fascinated to the point of obsession with custom-built minisubs. These deep-water sailors spend thousands of hours in garages and warehouses building, refitting, testing and marketing sophisticated submersibles.
Every once in a while they actually put one in the water. Then they get a double payoff: not just crafting a highly technical machine, but entering the exotic world at the sea floor.
Spear, 59, of Pompano Beach glimpsed that world through the 3-inch-thick acrylic viewports that bracket the Antipodes' bow and stern.
"I'm thinking this could get to be a habit," Spear said.
This was the first time the Antipodes' pilot, Ed Hoefing, 49, of Jupiter, had been in the sub, though he has spent about 3,000 hours working on it. That seems to be the main occupation of South Florida's sub cultists -- tinkering with the vessels so that they meet the requirements of the American Bureau of Shipping, which certifies a boat's mechanical and structural integrity.
Personal subs always seem to be yellow, more for visibility than in homage to the Beatles tune.
Parts aren't cheap. The Antipodes' signature features, those 58-inch-wide fore and aft viewports, cost more than $40,000 each; its four thrusters cost $10,000 each.
Hoffmann and his crew were aiming to have an ABS inspector certify the Antipodes as safe at 1,000 feet. Hoffmann had the sub hoisted from its Fort Lauderdale warehouse onto a flatbed, driven to a marina, lifted by crane and lowered into the water. A towboat dragged the vessel offshore. Hoffmann and Spear escorted it in a cabin cruiser. The day's outing cost Hoffmann about $2,500.
Hoefing made a test dive to 90 feet after enlisting Spear as ballast. The Antipodes was towed farther out, but Hoffmann was running out of time, and the depth was still shy of 1,000 feet. So Hoffmann opted for certification at whatever depth they were. ABS inspector Don Smith, arriving by rigid inflatable, clambered aboard. The sub disappeared into the deep. Long minutes pass. At 580 feet, Hoefing reported by radio: "Antipodes on the bottom, copy?"
"I copy," Hoffmann responded.
The vessel passed muster with Smith -- certified as safe at 580 feet.
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