Close encounter - with a submarine......

gardenshed said:
1: windsurfer off largs in the early 80's was arrested for wave jumping the wake of a sub coming up river. He passed between the after deck and the top to the rudder. Deatails should be in the court records for that time or an old local paper from largs

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Archie?
 
Old Snotty!

tinkicker0 said:
Probably, but I'm no scientist. Old glowing nose with reactive snot :D will know far more about these things than I, his life could have depended on it.
However:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermocline
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Old Snotty here! :D
I was Resolution Class (Polaris) and then Vanguard Class (Trident), so one of the aims of the UK Deterrent Patrol was obviously to go and hide for three-ish months…. and I believe we achieved this quite well. :cool:

We used to have three (if memory serves) Confidential publications to cross reference and extract the equations… the values of which we had to input known and detected / measured data / readings (this was slaughter the goat and roll the fluffy dice time). :confused:
I remember working… no!.... sweating over these in the Cab-space for hours getting them right.
There’s just one thing I can’t remember… and that is… what ever happened to my magic fluffy dice? :D:D:D
 
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Funny I should be seeing this thread. We were sailing about 4 or 5 miles outside Plymouth Sound yesterday morning. It was quite misty and blowing about 30 knots. Out of the mist, a conning tower appeared off our bow and passed down our port side about a quater of a mile off. A couple of friendly fellas gave us a wave from atop of the tower. Unfortunately our genoa sheet popped out of the bottom cringle at the time so things were a bit lively aboard but we managed to get a few snaps. Still great to see. We tacked around and followed her in, watching her go under tow from a couple of tugs. Made our day !!!!!
 
West Coast said:
Has anyone ever had an unexpected close encounter with a submarine?
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Once had green water over the foredeck (and into an open forehatch) from the bow wave of a nuclear submarine running at speed on the surface in a glassy calm sunny morning (hence the open hatch). Entrance to Clyde. By the time we realised just how big the wash was it was too late to shut the hatch...
 
This thread has surprised me - I knew about some of the well-known incidents with fishing boats but not expected so many "surface" encounters with yachts.

In all the discussion, seems the common theme for us yachtties is there is little we can do should one come our way......:rolleyes:
 
sarabande said:
Started to think about boats (i.e. submarines) and whales.

If one had an electroacoustic transducer glued to the hull below the water line - say, shoving out about 100 watts or so - would that have an effect on the sub below, or act as a warning to whales ?
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With something using that much power you would probably need to run your engine or a generator. If you were running your engine or a generator, you would not need anything else to alert a submarine to your presence ....
 
Here's the sub that passed us on Saturday outside Plymouth. Anyone know the type or name? Did here it on 16 talking to Longroom but was trying to repair my genoa sheet at the time.
 
robmcg said:
Here's the sub that passed us on Saturday outside Plymouth. Anyone know the type or name? Did here it on 16 talking to Longroom but was trying to repair my genoa sheet at the time.
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Thats one of the RN's Trafalgar class Attack boats... you see them around the sound quite a bit... (See my earlier pic....)

Around 5000 tons... torpedoes, Sub-harpoon, and Tomohawk armed.

I would say probably Torbay or Tireless or Trenchant...
 
Remember back in the '80's, we were out in a Caprice and had to move aside to allow a sub with accompanying flotilla through between the Great and Little Cumbraes off Millport...
 
Just remembered, we were stopped from entering Cherbourg inner harbour for an hour while one of their big subs came out of the military harbour there....We'd just crossed the channel and it was raining and we were milling around.

A French boat thought he'd jump the queue and go seaming over the ruins of the breakwater. Only he didn't he clattered it at about 7 knots and then sheepishly motored on into the harbour.
 
Standby.

snowleopard said:
Just been chatting with a currently-active submariner. He claims detecting a sailing boat is no problem at all.
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Unless we've had some serious upgrades since 96 (and this is quite possible). :confused:

I am now compelled to speak with some “Old Oppo’s” still serving & report back.
 
not convinced any sub could hear a sailing boat with no engine or echo sounder on.

(we crept up on a seal once, it was swimming up tide holding its position over the ground, and we sailed up behind it very slowly, also uptide. hell of a thump as its tail hit our bow as it shot off to port. not sure who got the bigger surprise! kyles of bute)

all we make is wave noises, in an ocean of waves.

better get that ghettoblaster fitted in the bilges then...
 
About 20 years ago I was sailing west towards Weymouth having just skirted the Lulworth range. We were reaching at about 5 knots when I went below to put a plot on the chart and heard a sound I have never heard before or since in 40 years of offshore sailing. I can only describe it as a sound of machinery running but not associated with anything on the yacht. There were no vessels of any description to be seen within 3 miles and there was nothing to be heard on deck but my mate went below and confirmed I was not imagining it.

This was on a Thursday and in those days my RN colleagues tell me the RN out of Portland often had a "Thursday War". In the distance was a Frigate stooging about and somewhat closer were two helicopters which would rush about then hover and through the binos appeared to lower a cable so I presumed they were dunking a sonar which could only have been to listen for a submarine. I therefore presumed the submarine they were looking for was actually hiding underneath us. I lifted the boards and hammered "F!!! Off" in morse on the bottom of the hull with a large adjustable spanner. About two minutes later the sound duly "F!!!!! Off". To this day I cannot prove it was a submarine but I am quite convinced that we were being used as cover for their exercise.
 
bikedaft said:
not convinced any sub could hear a sailing boat with no engine or echo sounder on.

(we crept up on a seal once, it was swimming up tide holding its position over the ground, and we sailed up behind it very slowly, also uptide. hell of a thump as its tail hit our bow as it shot off to port. not sure who got the bigger surprise! kyles of bute)

all we make is wave noises, in an ocean of waves.

better get that ghettoblaster fitted in the bilges then...
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Our company can now track all sorts of stuff with Sonar, that I had not seen whilst in the RN. One of our products can actually track the wash of a yacht, which hangs around for about 3-4 minutes once the vessel has passed - I thought the engineers were taking the p*** when they first showed me but I can confirm that it could be done.
 
West Coast said:
Don't know about forbidden areas, but we were to the north east of Arran, somewhere off Sannox Bay
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If you mean Inchmarnoch water it certainly used to be a designated submarine excercise area and I spent a happy twelve months as a trials officer firing torpedoes there.

As for the north east of Arran, yoe weren't anywhere near the double measured mile. In my day they used to do dived runs on that mile regularly to keep the calibration on the upper log valid. In those days DR and EP were king, especially dived so an accurate log was essential.

As for close encounters back in the days before political correctness was invented Warspite was doing a dived passage up ther Irish sea and we spotted a large yacht and the captain who went on to become quite famous made a run to pass under the yacht dropping the periscope maybe 50 yards short and then putting it up again after we had passed under.
 
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