Before I begin my journey South, you need to know what happened North.
Here she is ready to take her first dip in the water.
As in, you need to be up to date on the Fish Spy and all her Glory. I took it for a spin in Lake Michigan down by the Montrose Beach boat harbor.
I lowered the Fish Spy into the water and saw a lot of ... murky water and a muddy bottom.
And, well, I saw a lot of mud and swirling mud. It was MURKY. But it worked! So we decided to do our test drive in the pool. Liliana, Francisco and myself took it to the school pool the next and gathered some very important data. Which is that she needs some serious weights on the back. Maybe even a rudder. As Liliana pulled the Fish Spy through the pool, she began to cartwheel a bit. Not a full cartwheel, but enough to know that from the back of the ship she will need some weights.
Liliana and Francisco adjust the camera angle on the Fish Spy
Liliana and Francisco pull up the Fish Spy to make some adjustments.
We had a conference call with Bob Kluckhohn (who is he) and some marine techs to discuss what we found and how we will rectify it. Day two of the test drive was with the wings. Any guesses as to how it did? I can sum it up in one word – WORSE. This time she spun in circles as Francisco pulled it. Any guesses on the hydrodynamics of such a problem? Think of how a plane or a kite might work if the wings were not perfectly aligned, flush, and precise. Yeah…not a plane you would want to board, huh? So, we may fashion a rudder or back fins once I get it on board the LMG or maybe not. We’ll see…
We turned off the lights to see how the lighting on the camera worked. Pretty good, I might say!!