Ragdoll in the Surfzone

[Urban Legend]

Search and recovery in the surfzone has got to be some of the toughest work a man can do to make a living.
Being tossed around by the waves while trying to concentrate on a potential find would be hard enough...but I'm sure that watching the surf wash away what you've finally recovered would be disheartening...
I'm sure that there are many methods that increase your likelihood for success... experience is a great teacher..I also know there are some areas that too tough to consider searching because of the surf ...though necessity is the mother of invention..
I've been fortunate to work with some gifted mechanics and engineers over the years ..The one thing they all had in common is an open ear to different ideas..even the not so good ones...
For a device to work in the harsh environment of the heavy surf it would have to have enough weight to remain somewhat stable and have a large enough vacuum head underneath to remove sand .. and it would have to be aerodynamic to resist the shifting waters.
Something shaped like a manta ray would probably work ...
Any ideas ?

 

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[Urban Legend]

With drones becoming cheaper and smarter ..it would be nice to incorporate some of the technology into this sand sucking treasure hunting device.
Giving it a waterproof camera and GPS would be a good start..
Having 4 pinpointers around the edges would alert you to potential targets ..
A directional suction head would enable you to steer it to a potential target as well..
You may need a couple hundred feet of vacuum hoses so that you can anchor in the calmer waters beyond the breaking waves...
This thing is probably going to get expensive ?

 

[huntsman53]

It is ideas such as yours that has helped some Treasure Salvors adapt to the many types of conditions that they encounter when searching for and salvaging shipwrecks. There has been some experiment and use of round enclosures as protective barriers against wave action and currents and some that are set in place and the inside pumped reasonably dry. However, in some areas along the East Coast of Florida and especially so from Sebastian Inlet north and south for some distance, the jagged reefs and outcroppings of rocks make such equipment almost impossible to use. These areas are extremely dangerous for anyone who ventures into them, especially divers searching for treasure items because the wave action and currents can slam a diver into jagged coral and rock outcroppings with little or no time to react to the situation. It is these areas that would likely be best worked if a wall is erected around them all the way to the beaches and pumped dry or semi-dry so that the Salvor crews could work unabated/unaffected by water, wave action, currents, winds and even sharks and moray eels.


Frank

 

[Urban Legend]

By reversing the flow to the directional vacuum head you could also make the "Ragdoll" a good swimmer ...which would help in deploying and retrieval ...Leaving more time to enjoy a few drinks and watch the screen ...

 

[Urban Legend]

Jagged reefs and wave action is a bad mix...not sure how my manmade manta ray would hold up ? especially being tethered by hoses...
I'm thinking its time to invent a magnet that attracts all types of metal....and just drag it through the coral...

Jim

 

[RustyGold]

The Ray is a cool idea. It could be made out of a silicone rubber and made to replicate a real ray. You could control it the same way you do RC planes with a POV camera. You could make the vacuum detachable, send the Ray out to search for targets, lock onto target with gps, then bring the Ray back to the beach or boat to hook up the vac. Then send that puppy back to the target to retrieve it.
That would be a lot of fun creating the design and then getting it to work.
Best of luck!

 

[Urban Legend]

The manta ray will have to be at least 5 or 6 ft wide and weigh about 30 to 40 lbs to be stable enough to cling to the seabed ..
To keep it portable it would need to be made in 3 pieces and fold like a batwing mower..
With the weight needed for stability you could install quite a few lithium ion batteries under its flexible skin ...these could power all the onboard electronics as well as small electric fans for steering..

 

[huntsman53]

The manta ray will have to be at least 5 or 6 ft wide and weigh about 30 to 40 lbs to be stable enough to cling to the seabed ..
To keep it portable it would need to be made in 3 pieces and fold like a batwing mower..
With the weight needed for stability you could install quite a few lithium ion batteries under its flexible skin ...these could power all the onboard electronics as well as small electric fans for steering..

I would bet that the manta ray would have to weigh a lot more! Just ask some divers who have dove off Sebastian Inlet and they will likely tell you that even weighing in at 200 pounds or more and carrying a lot of dive weights, the wave action will still throw you around like a ragdoll.


Frank

 

[Urban Legend]

I'm thinking that with it being relatively flat and laying on the sand....along with the vacuum head sticking it to the sand..
It just might slipstream a lot of the water motion...on a flat area anyway ..

 

[Urban Legend]

I could incorporate tentacles near the outer edges feeding vacuum off the main vacuum head..
They might further stabilize it....

 

[Urban Legend]

I'm pretty sure I can get my manmade manta ray to mimic a real one...burying itself in the sand while it eats ....
The real problem is going to be the large vacuum hose that its going to be tethered on....even filled with sand and water its going to get grabbed by the currents.....

 

[SADS 669]

Having spent hours and hours in surf zones, the only thing that works is letting the surge do what it wants with you.

Being super heavy helps but waiting for the surge to place you once again where you want to be is the best you can hope for.

Mantas and other man sized fish steer clear of such places, sharks are really the only fish that function in these areas because they are powerful and can get out of dodge when they need to, Bumpy the diver can't.....

 

[ropesfish]

I would bet that the manta ray would have to weigh a lot more! Just ask some divers who have dove off Sebastian Inlet and they will likely tell you that even weighing in at 200 pounds or more and carrying a lot of dive weights, the wave action will still throw you around like a ragdoll.
Frank

Just last week for a couple of our divers...
I just remembered Mike the Dive Instructor at Treasure Coast Dive Center telling me that on a beach dive this weekend, one of his students got sick from the surge just while they were swimming out a couple hundred yards. They had to call the dive to get her back to the beach.

 

[seekerGH]

I have used concrete rings before. You set 1 concrete ring, then begin dredge vacuuming. The ring settles, and you can add fiberglas rings to the top of that The ring can be floated out with lift bags.

Single piece concrete rings for catchbasins can be up to 12 foot diameter. These are rated for firetrucks, and are overkill on the thickness.

If you want to go this route, have one made that is thinner and weighs less. The ones I have are 12 foot diameter and 4 foot high, and weighs around 1500 lbs. They were constructed by setting wood poles in the ground in a circle, wrapping plastic sheet around, then reinforced wire mesh for concrete slabs, then shooting it with shotcrete to form the ring.
Originally used to remove creo piles, it works very well to pothole and contain an excavation

 

[Urban Legend]

I'm not sure that there is anything you can design that will be reliable and indestructible in the surfzone..
However... I do believe if you cut the cord (vacuum hose) and turned the "Ragdoll" into a dedicated underwater drone that it would earn its keep..
By improving its propulsion and GPS capabilities ..It could run a grid and completely graph an area ..Armed with a few pinpointers near its outer edges ..quality cameras on top and below...LED lights on its underside.. and a good vacuum for sampling....it would be a useful tool..
The untethered realistic manta ray design would allow it to be covert so that discoveries would remain private until disclosure became necessary.

Just a thought....
Happy 4th of July...

Jim

 

[SADS 669]

I can see how enthusiastic you are about the manta design but in my opinion you might not be able to keep it into wind as it were with the surge, you will not be able to make it powerful enough, as soon as it looses its balance or gets side on it will end up 10 yards up the beach.

If you can solve that issue, you have a chance

 

[Urban Legend]

Some surfzones are more violent than others..
Things that look good on paper often fail in real world conditions..
Research and development with its trial and error can get frustrating and expensive..
I do believe that even if it were only used in calmer conditions that it could save lots of manhours in the discovery stage.
Preprogram a grid...let it run and survey the area...and it tells you what it found ..and where it found it..

 

[SADS 669]

If you tether it out beyond the surf zone with a wire or strong non stretchy cord it will only go left and right and not end up down surf......

 

[Urban Legend]

I guess you could string and tension a pair of heavy duty cable lengthwise in the washing machine environment of the surfzone...
Then just weight down a strong metal detector with recording capabilities... Put eyelets on it and drag it slowly the length of the cables...
Move the cables and make another pass..
A little bit hands on ...but it could work ?

 

[insontis]

Hi - I'm completely out of place here - but I was just thinking - is there any way to create strong enough suction without a tube? I mean, if we're talking about shallower/smaller objects.. would it be possible to have it simply suck up the sand, run it through a filter with a trap for larger objects, and shoot the sand out the back?

This idea is probably even more farfetched but, what if it traveled through the sand, partly submerged? Not sure what it would take to make something powerful enough to do this, but it would certainly assist in anchoring it if that is an issue.