From SFGate.com, Soaring under the Bay
To a chorus of ooohs and aaahs, a San Anselmo engineer ushered in a new era of undersea exploration Thursday when he zipped around the Bay in an innovative homemade submarine. (...)
His one-of-a-kind craft is long and sleek and bright blue. It is made of high-tech stuff like kevlar and carbon fiber. It looks like something NASA might build or the Blue Angels might fly.
If all goes according to plan, Hawkes and his investors said, Deep Flight Aviator will revolutionize exploration by making it easier and cheaper for everyone from scientists to filmmakers to plumb the ocean's depths.
What makes Hawkes' sub unique is how it works. Rather than using ballast to dive and rise like traditional subs -- which Hawkes said are to undersea exploration as dirigibles are to flight -- Deep Flight Aviator slices through the water like a jet through the sky.
"We don't sink, we fly," said Hawkes, a slight, 54-year-old bespectacled man with a slight British accent. "It moves fast and it moves beautifully." [continue]
Related Mirabilis.ca entry:
Homemade submarine - October 28th, 2002.