Since I'm new I try not to ask stupid questions or one that was easily searchable. But has anyone ever lost a ship or found one that had sunk weeks or months ago that was lost. I can't imagine the recovery floats are 100% reliable and some lakes can be large, murky and have currents. I can also picture a radio failure letting a ship drift out and possible sink in the middle of deeper water. I have had a couple of planes disappear over the horizon do to equipment failure. If your float does not deploy are you stuck wadding around in the water blind? Are there other safety measures to locate a sunken ship such as bright LEDs or audible devices?
We try to battle in depths less than 6 feet to reduce the chances of a loss. We have had to spend an hour trudging through a brown (sediment stirup from recent stormwaters, not poo water) looking for a ship with our feet. @Rob Wood lost a ship in a night run as I recall. Found it a month or so later. Think theres a thread somewhere about it.
There have been cases of boats sinking & not being found for long periods. I only know of one that was never recovered. It went out of control & sank somewhere in about 20' of water. As mentioned, there have been a few that were recovered days or even weeks later. Mostly, we battle in shallow (<6') deep water. Recovery floats are actually not very common. But usually people know when they're about to sink & head for shore. Plus, other captains will watch the sink, giving you a good cross-bearing on where you went down. So most ships are recovered in minutes.
Welcome to the site & Thanks, we all appreciate that. I'm working on a system to help locate/recover sunken warships, a few of the guys saw the proof of concept last month at NATS. If all goes well I should have the first working prototype done in the next week or so. I'm using a pressure sensor to determine when you've sunk which can then activate either a gun to provide a CO2 bubble on the surface to locate the boat or as some guys were talking about using it to inflate a bladder and "refloat" the wreck to be towed to the salvage yard, err driven to shore. Sinking close to shore is the easiest way, over time you learn what you boat looks like at different stages of sinking and can often get it in good position before it goes down. But that doesn't always happen and nobody likes when it takes a long time to find a boat.
I use a fishing pole with a weighted treble hook with heavy line to recover lost ships. The deepest was 30' and the largest was a Washington BB in 1/144 and the longest we had one sit on the bottom was two weeks. The best part is I don't have to go in the water to find a boat.
Nick is right in saying that I lost my Lutzow, and found it a month later. In this case, it wasn't combat, though. It was a nighttime "parade of lights" Christmas celebration. I lost radio contact due to a shorted-out power switch. The motors continued to run, and the rudder deflection was at something like 15 degrees, so the ship sort of wandered off into the night. Then the wind came up, and as there was no power to the pump, the waves washed over the deck and into the forward barbette, and down she went. On developing a means for finding a ship that goes down: One solution we've talked about is sound. A low-amp clapping or clattering type of noisemaker in the superstructure, activated with a water-sensing switch, could theoretically run for hours. CO2 solutions that send bubbles up to the surface are good for a short time on a good day, but CO2 runs out fairly quickly. I love the brainstorming! Rob
What's a power switch? Sound is okay for finding things underwater by ear, but bright LEDs are also good for when the sound gets you close.
