Boat/Sub Combo.... Boat 35mph, Sub 5 mph & 600' deep, $3.5M

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Photo and article

http://www.news4jax.com/news/14941496/detail.html

Boat-Submarine Combo Takes To Water
Developers Test Hyper-Sub In Clay County

POSTED: 6:36 pm EST December 28, 2007
UPDATED: 7:17 pm EST December 28, 2007

CLAY COUNTY, Fla. -- A first-of-its-kind boat that doubles as a submarine was tested Friday afternoon at Kingsley Lake west of Camp Blanding.

At first glance, some onlookers would probably think the test was a million-dollar ship sinking. But that was not the case. The Hyper-Sub Submersible Powerboat is a combination boat and submarine that is supposed to go underwater.

Developers said as a boat it can hit speeds of up to 35 mph, and as a sub it can go 5 mph and as far as 600 feet under water.

The Hyper-Sub has been inventor Reynolds Marion's life work.

"I started designing it when I was about 11 years old and spent 31-32 years trying to come up with the solution that make that type of a design possible," Marion said.

The Hyper-Sub is not going to be cheap. When it's put on the market, the starting price is expected to be around $3.5 million.

Reynolds said the Hyper-Sub would be a hit with everyone from the military to would-be explorers.

"You can use it across all sorts of different markets, like oil and gas, military, charter services. You can even own them as a retail private owner and you don't have to have a support system," Marion said.

The Hyper-Sub sports two-inch thick, iron reinforced glass to keep things safe inside during a dive.

"The first few times it was kind of scary. I was getting claustrophobic when the water would come over the top of the cabin where I could see. It was a little scary, but now it's kind of routine and most of what I think about is how much better we could do on the next one," said engineer Scott Shamblin.

Marion said now that his demo is up and running, his company has proved a lot of people wrong.

"Most of the submersible engineers we spoke to before we started building this told us that this was not possible for one craft. So we made history," Marion said.

Developers said they hope to have Hyper-Sub on the production line sometime in the next couple of years.

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Here are a couple more

Here are a couple more articles with a few more details. Original articles have more photos.


Hyper sub hysteria


It's a boat! It's a submarine! It's on public display this weekend
By MICHAEL MITSEFF
mmitseff@lakecityreporter.com
Published]http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/s ... 3001.shtml[/url]

'Dream' vessel gets coming-out party

The inventor tests his special submarine at a lake in Clay County.




By TIMOTHY J. GIBBONS, The Times-Union


Looking like something out of a sci-fi movie, the Fathom nosed its way out of the depths of Kingsley Lake, settling for a moment atop the gentle swells before firing up its engines to head to dock.

It was the first public test of a vessel that its inventor had dreamed of since he was 11 years old.

"There are literally thousands of nights I stayed awake building this in my head," said Reynolds Marion, a Virginia native who built the craft in a shop near Lake Butler.

Now it's built in steel and acrylic, a combination of a double-hulled boat and the heavy-duty pressure hull of a submarine.

Saturday, Marion and his team showed off their Hyper-Sub, which they say has already attracted the attention of the military, wealthy individuals and others.

The test included a 17-minute cruise, with the vessel moving along atop the chilly water, diving, traveling submerged and then surfacing to once more act like a typical boat.

The submarine differs from typical minisubs in that it can run long distances atop the water, instead of being designed just to work while submerged.

What the inventor calls "hyper buoyancy" means that when the craft's ballast tanks are empty, the vessel naturally floats with its sealed compartment high above the water, as opposed to submersibles that can just barely break the surface.

The craft differs from larger submarines, too, by having its engines sit in a pressurized container separate from the heavy hull surrounding the crew and cargo compartments.

That cuts down on weight, Marion said, making the vessel smaller and more fuel efficient.

"Basically, anyone with a 31-foot dock can have access to a submersible," he said.

Over the past five years - after switching from being an auto collision repair shop owner to a full-time inventor - Marion has lured experienced engineers and more than 100 investors to the project, enabling him to build the $1.5 million prototype.

Having that prototype Hyper-Sub cruising around Kingsley Lake - both under and on top of the water - moves the team a step closer to ramping up a production line.

Potential customers in Abu Dhabi as well as the U.S. Navy already have expressed interest, said Dave Smith, a retired Air Force test pilot on the company's management team.

Production versions of the Hyper-Sub will be able to be configured for different purposes, including salvage operations, underwater repairs and security searches.

Over the next few months, the team plans to raise another $500,000 to $1 million, which will enable it to do final plans for production, including modifying the bow of the Fathom to improve performance.

In February or March, they plan to start showing the craft at boat shows and industry events, hoping to make a first sale.

"That could happen at almost any time," Marion said.

But although commercial success will be a nice affirmation of the years of thought that went into the vessel, the true feeling of success for Marion comes in those moments when the craft starts sinking into the water, when his boyhood dreams are realized.