Do Submarines feel rough seas?

[Bob Viking]

Fellow Pruners, whilst I appreciate this is an Aircrew forum, I feel certain that someone amongst the assembled throng is, or was, a submariner who could answer my question.
Do you feel rough seas when submerged?
That is all I need to know and I will happily delete the thread or have it closed once it has been answered.
I apologise for the bandwidth that has been needlessly misappropriated in my quest for pointless knowledge.
BV:8

[Halton Brat]

Not sure if they are sensitive to the surface sea state Bob (do they Bob around?), but I'm certain that they feel it when they park the boat on a sandbank on a falling tide.........:=

HB

[oldpusser]

As a rule of thumb for every 100 feet you submerge cancels the effect of about 10 foot of waves. Eg 30 foot waves go down to 300 feet don't feel a thing etc etc

on the surface nuclear boats roll like a pig (hull all the wrong shape) while at periscope depth (about 70 feet) things can get abit hairy if sailing down sea or the boats rolls if going across sea.

Best bet is stay fast and deep

[Halton Brat]

Old Pusser, what do you know of the loss of HMS Thetis off Anglesey on her sea trials? What is a 'Thetis Clip'?

HB

[eastern wiseguy]

HB

A Thetis Clip

The Thetis Clip.
As a result of this accident, on the rear doors of all torpedo tubes was fitted a" Thetis Clip" a single dog clip, which stopped the door being opened more than a fraction, it allowed a very reduced flow of water, should the bow door be opened, once it became evident that the tube was empty of water, this safety clip could be overridden and the rear door safely opened.


From Ahoy - Mac's Web Log
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Mackenzie J Gregory

[Buster Hyman]

Ah, the Thetis. My Mum told me about that. Said she could see the stern poking out of the Bay & she always wondered why they couldn't save that crew. Sad.

REVEALED: How Navy let 99 sailors die to avoid damaging stricken sub | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1167547/REVEALED-How-Navy-let-99-sailors-die-avoid-damaging-stricken-sub.html)

[Union Jack]

As a rule of thumb for every 100 feet you submerge cancels the effect of about 10 foot of waves. Eg 30 foot waves go down to 300 feet don't feel a thing etc etc

Hmm .... I certainly recall rolling quite substantially at a keel depth of 500 feet in an SSBN so, on the above basis, what must it have been like up top?:yuk:

Jack

[Rossian]

....or maybe less than they used to. Old submariners phrase, "Happiness is 500ft in a gale."

On diesel boats when they do have to snort, going across the line of approaching waves is VERY uncomfortable. Each time the snort intake mast is covered by a wave the "clack valve" shuts, but the diesels keep running. The engines draw their air from inside the tube so the pressure drops, ears pop and it's hard to hear. A few secs later the valve opens and you're back to sea level pressure with a bang. Very disconcerting and makes talking difficult.

If the boat is going along the swell the mast may be submerged for an extended period, but the engines keep running and taking air from the tube. They will keep running (in the Dapne class at least) until the pressure drops by 200 millibars!!! The space fills with condensation, it gets chilly and wet. Then you emerge from the swell and now REALLY bang you're back at sea level from (a rough equivalent) 6000ft in half a second. That makes life very uncomfortable and sleep is almost impossible.

I was the only person on the boat who did not have a stugeron patch behind my ears. I'm blessed in that I don't suffer from motion sickness at all.

Watches in the top of the fin in a north Atlantic winter gale were purgatory. Spray freezing on your clothing and your face,the wind being added to by the gale of air going down the companion way to feed the diesels running flat out.

But apart from that .....

HTH

The Ancient Mariner

[sycamore]

U-J,maybe the coxswain practising his aeros sequence...or maybe it was your turn in the `barrel`....geddit...`.barrel-rolling.`.OK,hat,coat,gloves,..

[Finningley Boy]

Feel rough seas? I underthtand they can be quite thenthative!?:p

FB:)

[Bob Viking]

Thanks very much for your replies. I didn't realise the sea surface could affect things so far down.
My pointless knowledge bank is topped up once more! As a result I've probably pushed out something that may have been useful to me.
Now, where are my car keys?!
BV:bored:
PS. Mods feel free to close the thread unless you feel it warrants further discussion.

[Trim Stab]

Do you feel rough seas when submerged?



Actually the movement of submarines below the surface can be modelled by hyperbolic functions (sinh, cosh) etc. They are mathematical functions which are analogues ofmore commonly known trigonometric functions (sin, cos) etc, but based on exponenential functions. So as somebody mentioned, the effect of surface waves does diminisih with depth, but never entirely diminishes to zero.

The same mathematical functions can be used to model the surface wake of submarines. No matter how deep and slow a submarine may be, there is still a finite surface wake, which disturbs the overall random wave pattern on the surface of the sea. This wake may only be a few mm deep and negligible in comparison to the average amplitude of ocean waves. However, it is thus actually possible to track submarines using satellites by scanning the sea with short wavelengh doppler radar and applying massive amounts of computer power to filter out the random noise of waves.

I actually wasted a few years of my life studying this!

[Thelma Viaduct]

REVEALED: How Navy let 99 sailors die to avoid damaging stricken sub | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1167547/REVEALED-How-Navy-let-99-sailors-die-avoid-damaging-stricken-sub.html)

Some things never change, absolutely disgusting behaviour, but only to be expected from the top brass.