Submersibles: "Footprints in the Sea" 1965 US Navy; Deep Jeep, Soucoupe, Moray, CURV (Patreon)

more at http://quickfound.net/

A REPORT ON THE LATEST DEEP SUBMERSIBLE, MANEUVERABLE CRAFT TESTED AND USED BY THE NAVY. NEW UNDERWATER PHOTOGRAPHIC SCENES OF SOUCOUPE, DEEP JEEP, MOREY, AND CURV.

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SP-350_Denise

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The SP-350 Denise, famous as the "Diving saucer" (Soucoupe plongeante), is a small submarine designed to hold two people, and is capable of exploring depths of up to 400 metres (1,300 ft). It was invented by Jacques-Yves Cousteau and engineer Jean Mollard at the French Centre for Undersea Research. It was built in the year 1959 and usually operated from Cousteau's ship, the Calypso.

Its propulsion consists of steerable, electrically powered water jets, allowing it to navigate in all directions, as well as turn about its vertical axis. To correct the attitude of the hull, the pilot can shift a liquid mercury ballast mass. The crew members enter the craft through a hatch on the top of the hull and lie prone side-by-side on mattresses to operate it, watching their surroundings through tilted portholes that let them come within a few centimeters of their subject. Electric lamps are fitted for night diving and to provide illumination for photography at extreme working depths. An electrically operated manipulator arm can be fitted at the front of the craft so that the craft can pick up objects for the crew to examine through the portholes.

The steel pressure hull, nearly circular in plan form, is 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) in diameter and 1.43 metres (4 ft 8 in) high, able to resist a pressure of more than 90 kg/cm2 (1,300 psi), equivalent to a depth of nearly 900 metres (3,000 ft), although dives never exceed 300 metres (980 ft) for safety.

Denise is naturally positively buoyant, and is weighted to negative buoyancy with ballast weights that can be jettisoned in an emergency. If the craft is within 100 metres (330 ft) of the surface, the crew can abandon it via the top hatch, provided they are equipped with emergency breathing apparatus.

Launching and recovery is accomplished with the assistance of a shipboard crane.

Denise was used by Jacques Cousteau in 1976 to explore the wreck of the HMHS Britannic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CURV

CURV-III was the fourth generation of the United States Navy Cable-controlled Undersea Recovery Vehicle (CURV). CURV was a prototype for remotely operated underwater vehicles and a pioneer for teleoperation. It became famous in 1966 when CURV-I was used to recover a hydrogen bomb from the floor of the Mediterranean Sea. In 1973, CURV-III performed the deepest underwater rescue in history when it rescued two men 1,575 feet (480 m) from the ocean surface who were stranded 76 hours in the submersible Pisces III with just minutes of air remaining. The CURV-III became known in the Great Lakes region in 1976 when it was used to survey the wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. CURV-21 is the current generation that replaced CURV-III...

History

CURV was developed by Naval Ordnance Test Station, Pasadena, CA in the early 1960s. It was initially designed to recover test ordnance... CURV was the pioneer for teleoperation. CURV-III is the fourth generation of CURV. After the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, CURV III was transferred to the Navy's Supervisor of Salvage who directed that it be upgraded from 10,000 feet (3,000 m) operations to 20,000 feet (6,100 m)...

CURV-III was sent to the National Museum of the U.S. Navy in 2012 and she is located in the Cold War Gallery... The CURV-III carried:

Two Vidicon television cameras, four mercury-vapor headlights, two mercury-vapor spotlights, and a 35-millimeter camera...

Notable operations

1966 H-bomb recovery

In the Palomares incident of 17 January 1966, a hydrogen bomb was lost in the Mediterranean Sea when a B-52 bomber collided with a KC-135 tanker near Palomares, Spain. The bomb was located, at a depth of 2,900 feet (880 m), by the United States Navy submersible DSV Alvin after a 2½ month search. After Alvin was unsuccessful in recovering the bomb, the Navy brought in CURV-I. CURV-I was successful in attaching grapnels to the bomb but became entangled in the bomb’s parachute lines. The entangled bomb, parachute, and CURV-I were successfully raised together to the surface 81 days after the original incident...