The research vessel Atlantis serves as the support vessel for Alvin operations. During each recovery, two certified swimmers help bring the sub back to the ship. (Photo by Amy Nevala, WHOI) (Photo by Amy Nevala, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Current pilots and pilots-in-training with the Alvin group on a spring 2005 expedition to the Galápagos Rift included (from left) Anthony Berry, Mark Spear, Patrick Hickey, Bruce Strickrott, Anthony Tarantino, and Gavin Eppard. (Photo by Dave Gallo, WHOI)
» Life After Alvin You can't keep former Alvin pilots down on the farm, once they've seen the seafloor
Forty summers ago in the Bahamas, two men climbed inside a 23-foot white submarine named Alvin and drove it to a depth 6,000 feet, a dive that certified them as the first pilots of the world’s deepest-diving research sub.
Bill
Rainnie and Marvin McCamis never became household names the way
astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong would four years later when
they rocketed into space. In 1969, when newspaper headlines worldwide
heralded the moon landing, The New York Times called Alvin “a curiously shaped midget submarine, [that] somewhat resembles a chewed-off cigar with a helmet.”
But in the four decades that followed, Alvin has
safely transported more than 8,000 researchers on more than 4,100 dives
to some of the blackest, coldest, and most remote places on Earth—to
depths of 14,764 feet (4,500 meters). While the United States has
maintained a small fleet of space shuttles since 1981, Alvin is the country’s sole deep-diving research submarine.
Some 75 space shuttle pilots have flown missions, but since 1965, the job of driving Alvin has gone to just 34 men and one woman. Mechanically minded and adventurous, Alvin pilots are the equivalent of the oceans’ astronauts.
Their
skills have allowed scientists worldwide to explore the ocean depths,
map undersea volcanoes and valleys, examine previously unknown ocean
life, gather water, rock, and biological samples, and see firsthand the
ruins of the Titanic. They view sights that—though still on
Earth—are nevertheless extraterrestrial, and they bear witness to
revolutionary scientific discoveries.
Witnesses to seafloor discoveries Larry
Shumaker, now 73 years old, was a pilot in 1977, the year scientists
first identified hydrothermal vents on the seafloor near the Galápagos
Islands. Their finding would change ideas about where and how life
could exist.
“I felt like Alice in Wonderland,” Shumaker said.
“I remember the shimmering water coming from the vents and the unusual
animals that humans had never seen before. Of course, now scientists
have identified many of these animals (including tubeworms, white
shrimp, and giant clams). But at the time it was all so weird and new.”
Former
pilot Tom Tengdin was amazed by the tall seafloor rock formations,
called black smoker chimneys, that were discovered in 1979. Belching
black, scalding, mineral-rich fluids into the ocean, the smokers
transformed scientists’ understanding of the Earth’s crust and the
ocean’s chemistry.
“Video doesn’t capture the black smokers,” he said. “When you’re down there among them, you can almost hear them roar.”
Pilots
are more than deep-sea bus drivers who ferry scientists from surface to
seafloor. Most have engineering degrees, and their certification with
the U.S. Navy includes drawing—by memory—dozens of the sub’s intricate
hydraulic, ballast, electrical, and mechanical components and systems.
They are skilled swimmers; every launch and recovery requires
assistance in the water. They are all mechanics as well as pilots; if
anything breaks during an expedition, there are no fix-it shops at sea.
Just
maintaining the sub’s electronic and mechanical components requires at
least five hours of work daily. Every three months—or every 25 to 30
dives—Alvin undergoes maintenance and inspection. And every three to five years, Alvin
undergoes a six-month overhaul and modernization at Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution. There, the pilots help clean, examine, and
reassemble every component of the sub.
“Not to make it sound too
dramatic—because the sub is very solid—but we’re constantly working
hard to make sure that the sub comes back up to the surface,” said
pilot Anthony Tarantino.
At sea, daily chores begin before
dawn, when the entire group rises to check the submersible’s equipment
and ensure that the batteries are charged. They test electronic gear,
from radios to temperature gauges and depth-readers. They make sure Alvin’s cameras
work and video recorders are loaded with tape. They add a total of 832
pounds in ballast weights—stacks of steel plates—to each side of
the sub. These make Alvin heavy enough to sink to the seafloor.
Then
the glory begins, when two scientists slip into the sub’s 6-foot
sphere, huddle against tiny view ports, and turn to today’s pilot who
will take them to the seafloor. When the sub resurfaces in the evening,
another pilot will hose corrosive salt water off Alvin and its components. Meanwhile, tomorrow’s pilot meets with scientists to plan strategies for the next day’s mission.
Reaction from the public Piloting Alvin comes with modest fame. Children’s books describe the team of six or seven Alvin
pilots and pilots-in-training that accompanies the sub on each
expedition. Teenagers send e-mail messages to their support ship, the
research vessel Atlantis, asking about the two-to-four-year, at-sea training process. (See What is the Alvin Training Program Like?) Strangers on airplanes and parties who ask, “What do you do?” grow wide-eyed at their response.
“People
have two reactions,” said Anthony Berry, a 26-year-old in his third
year of pilot training. “They are either impressed, or they think I’m
crazy. They say, ‘Why would you want to go to sea for months at a time
and go into the pitch black sea in a tiny sub?’”
For every 40 applications to the Alvin
group, one person is accepted into the pilot training program, which
requires worldwide travel and up to eight months each year at sea. But
for all the work involved in getting into the pilot seat, piloting Alvin isn’t a career. (See Life After Alvin.) Some of today’s pilots may not be around when Alvin is retired and replaced in 2009 by a new human-occupied submersible, now being designed.
Most
stay an average of five years before family, other job opportunities,
or the lure of driving something smaller than a 35,000-pound submarine
beckons from shore. Still, every pilot has a story of why they went to
sea and what happened during their time inside Alvin.
(See 'Ever
Get Scared in the Sub?' and Other Questions.)
“We’ve all gone through the same path, and the guys
who make it are definitely solid,” Tarantino said. “You’re looking at a
bunch of guys who rely on each other. I’d place my life in any of their
hands.”
