Yachts are so passe. Media magnates and other filthy richers that dare to be different should check out the submarines from Exomos, available for a suprisingly-affordable $40,000 in yellow, blue, green, orange, black or white.
The battery-powered Goby can hold up to three people and travel up to 40 metres below the surface for 8 kilometres per charge. [The Red Ferret Journal via Crave]-Jenneth Orantia
This is the Stingray robo-sub, one of the competitors in the tenth Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition, which is taking place at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego this weekend. Rather confusingly, one of its rival’s entries, from the U.S. Naval Academy, is known as Project Stingray, which you can see below. It’s not as sexy as the one above, although the Academy boys get points from me for looking buff in their shorts.
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It appears Microsoft’s co-founder is a big fan of things that sink. Obviously an avid Beatles fan, Allen’s latest toy is a fully functional 40-foot yellow submarine (not to be confused with a 40-foot Yello Sub, which would be an even worse investment). He’s now a member of a small, exclusive clique of ultra-rich underwater explorers; about 100 personal submarines are floating around our oceans. Hopefully it came with better drivers than Vista (zing!). [Paul Allen's New Sub via Valleywag]
In a flooded quarry in Albury, Lloyd Godson spent 12 days in a yellow submarine. Not any submarine. “The world’s first self-sufficient, self-sustaining underwater habitat.” By self-sustaining, they mean he still needed food deliveries, but it did generate its own oxygen, thanks to special algae soaked in Lloyd’s urine. Mmmm… I can almost taste the aroma…
Can’t say I spotted this in local press, but there was a big story on the ordeal experiment at the Daily Telegraph in the UK. That’s where the cool diagram came from too.
Australian emerges after two weeks in underwater box [Daily Telegraph UK][via Neatorama]
Remember that Astute-class nuclear submarine that looked like a whale? Well, scrap that, because it really looks like a Calamari Cruiser or a Zentraedi mothership. At least, that’s what people must be thinking while they watch it travelling through the roads of Britain mounted on a gigantastic moving platform. Personally, I can’t wait for the “My Other Car Is a Nuclear Sub” bumper sticker. – Jesus Diaz
Image of the day [BBC News]
This is the British Royal Navy’s newest class of submarine, the Astute. And this is what the nuclear-powered behemoth can do: generate its own air and water; sit in the English Channel and fire cruise missiles at North Africa; but perhaps the most extraordinary feature of the British-built sub is that it will never need to be refuelled throughout its 25-year lifespan, meaning it can sail round the world 40 times without surfacing – if your seamen don’t need feeding, that is.
The Brits have put in an initial order for three of the subs – a snip at $2.33 billion each – and each one is expected to enter into service in 2009, 2010 and 2011. The contractor, BAE Systems, in Barrow, says it learned a lot from US sub builder Electric Boat – namely to build sections of the sub vertically (hence the 12-storey construction towers at the plant) which saved on manpower. Check the big beast in the gallery below, and the specs after the jump.
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