The Global Sub Dive team worked through the holidays to get both subs, NEMO and NOMAD ready for their next mission.
The picture above shows both subs mounted on the transport truck, securely tethered down, and ready to be shipped.
Looks easy, right? Well, this image shows the end result of many hours of hard work by our professional team and service providers.
So let’s start from the beginning.
To begin preparing the subs for a mission or project, NEMO and NOMAD get decals related to the sponsors and supporters of the mission they will be facilitating and then shrink wrapped to protect them from being scratched during transport. For this mission, our client wanted each sub to have a specific color, so NEMO was dressed in yellow, and NOMAD was dressed in dragon red. All this is done at Global Sub Dive’s Headquarters, located in Pompano Beach, Florida.
After getting their special paint job and shrink wrapping, the subs are loaded onto the back of our custom trailer and hauled outside of the warehouse where there is ample working space for the crane to pick them up and placed them on the transport truck.
Our custom trailer is specifically designed to fit our Triton 1000/2 subs, securely fitting them on their tracks when they are transported from our Headquarters in Pompano Beach, Florida to our vessel the GO America, which is docked in Davie, Florida. But for this mission, the subs will be heading out of the country.
Next, the very professional team at Allegiance Crane will have the job of hooking NEMO and NOMAD from the lifting harness and carefully off-loading them from the trailer to be placed on then transport truck. We love our subs, and we always make sure every person who comes in contact with them feels the same. For these delicate jobs, and to keep everything under the trusting umbrella of capable and knowledgeable hands, our boss chooses to hire family. The crane operator in the image above is Clay our CEO’s son in law.
With our boss watching every step to make sure everything is done properly, Clay hooks the subs, then gently and slowly starts moving them. Each sub has a dry weight of 6,800 lbs (3,100 kg), so each movement the crane operator makes must be meticulously planned and executed to avoid any injuries to personnel or damages to equipment.
Randy carefully supervises the loading of the second sub onto the transport truck and starts the tethering process, which has to be done with absolute care to ensure the subs will not shift or fall off.
To ensure the submersibles are properly and tightly secured, the team uses heavy duty lever action load binders, each with the capacity to hold over 5,000 lbs of weight. The chains get dressed with a tubular canvas and any lose chain parts are secured with heavy duty ultra strong zip ties to prevent the subs from getting scratched and arrive at their destination with battle scars.
The next step is to get the container ready for transport. Whether it is a project in the Bahamas, an exploration missions near Italy, conservation efforts in Guadalupe Island, or the middle of the Indian Ocean, the sub container accompanies the subs wherever their missions and project are located.
For this process, Randy spends a considerable amount of time making sure all equipment needed to recharge and perform all maintenance on the subs is carefully selected, tested, if necessary packaged or repackaged, and placed and secured inside the container.
From tools to spare parts to other related support equipment, the container weighing close to 15,000 lbs is now ready to be shipped together with NEMO & NOMAD.
Once all necessary support materials and components for the mission are added to the container, it is then hauled out of our warehouse into an open area where it will be loaded onto the transport truck.
After the container is carefully hoisted outside of the warehouse, Randy climbs up and hooks the lifting chains to all four corners so that the crane operator can start the slow lifting process onto transport truck.
With all four corners securely attached, the container is slowly lifted from the ground.
Slowly…
And after about 15 minutes of careful movements with the massive crane, the container is finally loaded on the back of the transport truck and ready to begin its tethering process.
For this part, the boss and Randy cut equal length chains that will be used to secure all four corners of the container to the transport truck.
Our equipment is considered special cargo, so we use open top containers designed for equipment that does not fit into a standard containers. These open top options allow for our precious cargo to the easily secured with a variety of lashing bars and bull rings.
The tethering process to transport Global Sub Dive’s equipment is perhaps the most time consuming of all. I mean, we have to make sure that equipment worth millions of dollars is properly secured from door to door, and back to our headquarters.
Nearly two hours into the process, the support container is securely attached using heavy duty lever action load binders and very big chains, and it is now ready to begin its trek to Port Everglades to meet NEMO & NOMAD and be en-route to their next mission.
Global Sub Dive is a world class compliment of resources that provides a platform for collaborative human exploration and documentation of the marine world. We are a mission specific team of professionals ready to support your next project. Want to learn more about our elite services, team, and resources? Please drop us a message.
