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I was early interested in scuba diving and submarines especially open ones. This interest was awakened when I at the age of seven years old (must have been 1955?) saw Jacque-Yves Cousteau's movie: The Silent World
One year later I made my first underwater scooter with built in two 12V car batteries and a General Electric motor with home made transistorised speed control and also a home made gearbox for the propeller. I had two handles to hang on behind the scooter but I realized that it was extremely heavy to control. A new idea turned up. I cut of the back part on the sleigh and attached it on the underwater scooter. Two air tubes were already on the sleigh and I used these for extra breathing air and to blow the air tanks that were filled with water when diving. In this matter I could go up to the surface and stay there. The SUB73 was
finished 1973. Unfortunately I crashed into a big stone and nearly died because of bad underwater sight. The SUB101. I now decided to create a whole new concept with electronics, underwater sonar, a diving computer with some sort of artificial intelligence.
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Last update: 3 November 2001 File: JG_SUB_tech1.htm |
I created my
first submarine 1971. This was actually an underwater sleigh with steering
wings from helicopter blades and links for the control stick from a rear
helicopter rotor. The sleigh was made in stainless steel; aluminium and the
axes for the wings had Teflon bearings. There was no motor. My neighbour had
a boat with which he took me in tow. I tried to dive and went down with a
terrible speed hitting the underwater grass and then came up breaking the
surface like a dolphin and then down again tumbling around like a fish but I
couldn’t go on with this because the sleigh was not balanced to the water. I
tried to hang on some led weights and blow-tanks. It was now much easier but
I didn’t like to hang after that boat without any control. It was extremely
exhausting to hang on and not falling off the sleigh. The next step was to
make an underwater telephone to give directions to the tugboat. A forty-meter
long cable was put inside a nylon rope with connectors in each end. The
telephone was made of a sealed microphone that I put into my mask and a
sealed hearing aid in my hood. In the other end I had a transistorised
amplifier and a headset with microphone. 
