Bruce
Things are looking good. Art’s email says it all. I have censored certain parts for obvious reasons. Of significances: The depth is well over 2000 ft which means that we will need a much heavier ROV (about 25,000 lbs) to actually determine what happened. That will not happen this summer.
Art
On our 1000 and 500 meter swaths on our first possible target, X nm north of McArthur Reef, we found a submarine shaped hard target about 320 feet long and 12 meters [39 ft] wide. [the Grunion was 312 ft long with beam of 27 ft] On a low altitude pass the shadow reveals a possible conning tower and periscope. Target is sitting upright on the bottom at the base of the slope in [over 2000 ft] water depth.
Considering all the information we have, this is almost certainly the Grunion.
Our intention is to run some more 500 meter swath runs and then shift to the AMS 60 for a tight grid in the area.
We will forward some imagery from the sonar screens in a few hours
Initial pictures of our target are attached.
The two 3000 meter swath pictures from lines 1106 and 1107 are views of the starboard swath only from centerline out to 1500m.
The 1500m swath and 600m swath shots are zoomed portions of the swath presentation.
Photo 1500 m swath
Photo 600 m swath
All four pictures show the increasing resolution as swath is decreased.
The shadow on the 600m swath pic looks very much like a submarine silhouette with a periscope mount.
We are running more passes now.
The submarine blogosphere is standing by…
Amazing -
Congratulations!
Arlene (Pete’s Mom).
… i’ll second what Bubblehead said. This is incredible stuff.
Incredible! Great work and, again, thanks for the postings!
Susan Wisenbaker
Our fathers were USNA ‘26 classmates. I pray that what you found is GRUNION and you get the peace of closure.
Jim Moses
CDR USN (Ret.)
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/08/17/after_six_decades_a_submarines_fate_may_surface/
Congratulations, you made the Globe today. Great work!
ellie
This is so exiting I can hardly stand. How I would live to be there while this is all going on.
Incredible find.wish i was there to share the energy of .Good Going !!!! Hats off to you
Great work Art! Good to see Wassoc in the news again!