Recovery of a one-atmosphere transfer system

On May 14, 1980, a one-atmosphere submersible transfer system was deployed in 604 m off West End, Grand Bahama Island. The system, designed and built at Harbor Branch Foundation, Inc., weighs 2994 kg in air and 1361 kg in sea water and was designed to enable scientists to transfer experiments at atmospheric pressure from the dive chamber of a JOHNSON-SEA-LINK submersible to ambient pressure at depths to 610 m. This paper deals with the recovery of this system on October 27, 1981, using two of Harbor Branch's JOHNSON-SEA-LINK (J-S-L) submersibles and two research vessels, 37.5 m R/V JOHNSON and 30.5 m R/V SEA DIVER.