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RETRIEVAL OF THE PROPELLER |
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FROM THE LAKE TANKER ORANJESTAD |
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CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN JOHN GEIS AND ANDRE LOONSTRA |
| John first sent Andre a question about the dive: |
| I received information from Don Gray about the raising of the propeller from the Oranjestad, then got I some photos and then linked to lago-colony web site and watched the video-wow! I am interested in how they got the prop loose from the shaft so that it could be raised with air bags. An earlier email I received from one of the divers said they only had 11 minutes of bottom time available at 230-ft, so that had to be well coordinated. |
| I salvaged 3 US Air Force jets from the bottom when I was a hard hat diver with the US Navy, one of them was in 180-feet of water and I ended up with 75 minutes of decompression, and still had to get into a recompression chamber. |
| I would really like to know the steps you followed to get it off and tied with air bags. Please keep me in the loop! |
| This was Andre's reply: |
| Hi John, I am the guy that emailed you earlier about the salvage. I will try to answer your questions. First of all, the prop was already loose. If you look closely at the video you can see it leaning against the end of the shaft. We first assumed it broke off when the ship hit the bottom, but when you look at the video you can see that the shaft and support struts are not bent, so I believe some one cut it off, and never did the actual salvage. Lucky for us. Once we have the prop on land we will examine the break to see what happened. Percy had dived the wreck many times over the years but it was Dick who noticed the propeller was not attached to the shaft. |
| Percy, Dick and I were talking about the dive at my dive shop when Dick mentioned it. It was at that point that we came up with the idea to bring the prop up and donate it for a memorial. As for the diving, the team did a total of 14 dives on air using regular scuba equipment with redundant setups. (double tanks and regulators with safety bottles at 20 feet.) most of the dives were 15-18 minutes from beginning of descent to beginning of ascent. with average total deco times of 75 minutes. I actually only went on one dive on the wreck to 200 ft for 15 minutes and decompressed as per my dive computers recommendations for 2 minutes at 40 ft, 4 minutes at 30 ft, 8 minutes at 20 ft and 24 minutes at 10 feet for a total dive time of 58 minutes when you add the ascent times. |
| I actually could have come up much faster because I used a 50% Nitrox mix for decompressing, but I still used the air deco times for a big safety factor. The new dive computers are great, because they figure all the stops out for you, but at those depths we still had the dive plan on a slate in case the computer fails. The dives were extremely demanding, with high danger factors. We are very proud to have pulled this off with no incidents. The team barely knew each other before the project, we ended up working together like a well oiled machine, and are now good friends with a special bond. |
| This was one of these things that you do on a lark but it was a once in a lifetime adventure that you never forget. |
| After the propeller was successfully retrieved Andre wrote again to John about the broken shaft. This is what he said. |
| Hi John, we took a quick look at the shaft
piece in side the prop, and it looks like it broke, or corroded off. It
actually looks like the shaft might have been made of steel with a cover
or layer of Stainless steel. I took some pics that I have tried to
attach, but it won't let me send them (too big)I will try to have my
wife send them from her computer. regards Andre Loonstra |
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CLICK HERE TO SEE A VIDEO OF THE FIRST DIVE ON THE ORANJESTAD |
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CLICK HERE TO SEE A VIDEO OF THE LIFTING OF THE PROPELLER FROM THE BOTTOM |
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CLICK HERE TO SEE A VIDEO OF THE LIFTING OF THE PROPELLER FROM THE SEA TO LAND |
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CLICK ON EACH SHOW TO SPEED UP THE SHOW, TIMED FOR 8 SECONDS PER SLIDE |
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CLICK HERE TO MAKE A CONTRIBUTION TO THE FUND FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE MEMORIAL |