However, he says a number of clients, including the ‘occasional large treasure hunter’, like to go on similar searches themselves, either with a team of experts or with family and friends. Triton’s Jones says that, like Paul Allen, many of his private clients offer their submersibles to scientists, the $3.6 million 3300/3 being one example. Winch describes Allen as someone who seeks ‘incredible adventures’, ranging from discovering the Japanese battleship Musashi to loaning his megayacht with the submarine on board to scientists to study the coelacanth, a dinosaur-era fish once mistakenly supposed to have become extinct over 66 million years ago. A prime example is the large submarine that Microsoft’s Paul Allen has on board his 414ft yacht Octopus. While some superyacht owners might love the recreational aspect of DeepFlight submersibles, the Jacques Cousteau aspect of some other submersibles should not be overlooked. ‘There’s more and more interest every year - with respect to Triton and our production and order book, 2015 was quite remarkable.’ Indeed, orders were up 400 per cent up on 2014. ‘We’ve been doing this longer than everybody else,’ he says. Some of the line-ups were passenger submersibles which can dive approximately 300m and more: the C-Explorer 3 from Dutch company U-Boat Worx (starting at $2 million), and the larger family-centric Aurora-5 from California maker Seamagine ($1-3 million).īruce Jones, CEO of manufacturer Triton, which showed off one of the world’s deepest diving submersibles (reaching depths up to 11,000m) in Monaco, is in good spirits. While grand yachts can go the distance, Birkett recognises that ‘toys’ like the submersibles cover the depth, making them crucial on a cruise: ‘Most yachts are geared towards activities on the water, so they’ll always have facilities such as tenders and jetskis, but we’re now seeing the increasing use of submarines.’ DeepFlight president Adam Wright (aka ‘Depth Charge’) expects to see the market expanding significantly in the next few years.Īt last September’s Monaco Yacht Show, other submarine-makers flaunted their products, aiming to impress superyacht owners. ‘For the layman it’s very easy, because the minute you take your hands off the control it slowly drifts back up to the surface and it’s very safe.’ĭeepFlight’s Dragon has ‘already taken six or seven orders’ since its launch, says Y.Co’s Charlie Birkett. ‘DeepFlight is going to change that, I think,’ he says, commending the simplicity of its design. But he has new hopes for more innovative designs. Y.Co’s Wright says the industry has seen many submersible makers struggle to stay in business due to scarce demand. British yacht designer Andrew Winch says it used to be tricky due to the depths a submersible reaches: ‘If there is a fault, how do you recover it? You wouldn’t want to put your very wealthy client deeper than where you can recover them from if there’s a problem.’ Key players in the yacht industry are noticing more interest in private submarines too, despite having seen clients in the past hesitate to request one on board as easily as they would a jetski or helicopter. Besides their use as military craft, industrial excavators of oil and gas, and scientific tools, submersibles now have a more recreational role. Hawkes, too, who has designed over 50 submarines (both military and civilian), has noticed a more ‘private market’ emerging, alongside large luxury yachts. ‘It’s still a very small market, but it’s a hell of a lot bigger than just military, oil and gas - more interesting too.’ DeepFlight’s prototypes are part of the non-military submersible phenomenon that has become popular in the past seven years, according to Gary Wright, a co-founder of Y.Co yacht specialists. Hawkes sells his products to private individuals and beach resorts. ‘They gave me a licence to kill Bond,’ he jokes. ‘Somebody pushes a button and a door swings open at the back, it’s all very James Bondy,’ he laughs, reminiscing about his own experience as a baddie who smashes into the secret agent’s submersible in For Your Eyes Only. Both could fit into a hidden garage in the back of a modern private yacht, says Hawkes. The $1.7 million submersible that ‘flies’ has a smaller ‘sister’ called the Dragon ($1.5 million), which ‘hovers’ like a helicopter, making both types the smallest (and lightest) of their kind. Easy to use, the craft could be independently manned after a twenty-minute training session. The Super Falcon Mark II is a DeepFlight model that could perform deep-sea acrobatics 120m below sea level, applying the same principle of lift and thrust as a plane.
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