OT: Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, A tale of a fateful trip...

[geoschmo]

That started from this tropic port,

Aboard this tiny Ship.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...168/4rtkk.html



Give them an A for ingenuity. The Coast Guard should have let them in just for chutzpah. But I guess the rules say if they don't make land they gotta go back.

I hear next time they are gonna slip past the Coasties in a submersibile '75 Beetle.

Everybody now...We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine....

Geoschmo

[ July 24, 2003, 20:13: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Thermodyne]

LOL I wonder how fast it goes?

[geoschmo]

Since Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s 1959 revolution, Cubans have tried to leave the Caribbean island on rudimentary rafts, on giant truck inner tubes, in stolen boats and planes, even by windsurfer.

But no one remembers anyone attempting the 90-mile crossing of the Florida Straits in a floating flatbed truck with 55-gallon (250-litre) drums strapped to its sides, tires still in place, a propeller attached to its drive shaft and a driver behind the wheel.

"We've seen surfBoards, pieces of Styrofoam, bathtubs, refrigerators. But never an automobile," Coast Guard Petty Officer Ryan Doss said on Thursday.

A U.S. government plane spotted the bright-green truck chugging through the water at 8 mph (13 kph) on July 16 about 40 miles south of Key West, just over halfway from Cuba to Florida. The Cubans had fashioned a makeshift, bright yellow shelter on the truck's bed.

"The truck's engine was actually running, propelling it through the water," Doss said.

The Coast Guard picked up the 12 Cubans from the vintage vehicle and took them back to the island on Sunday.

The truck was deemed a hazard to navigation and was sent to the bottom.

[ July 24, 2003, 20:37: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[sachmo]

Someone sign these guys up for Junkyard Wars.

[Narf'scompatshop]

personally, i think canda and the us's immigration policy is way to restrictive. if they want to get to the us that bad, they should let them in.

[minipol]

hehe, nice set of wheels

[General Woundwort]

Inventive and gutsy folks like these were what made this country great. I say, let 'em in.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by General Woundwort:
Inventive and gutsy folks like these were what made this country great. I say, let 'em in.

I agree. If you wanted to hire someone to work for you, would you want someone like this with ingenuity , courage and a desire to be here, or someone who's only redeeming quality is that their grandfather's grandfather came to America a century and a half ago.

Geoschmo

[ July 25, 2003, 04:06: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Kamog]

That's a handy modification they did to that truck. Maybe they can drive along, and when they come to a river, just keep driving into the water, chug across, and then drive up the other side. That's also useful in case of floods.

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Kamog:
That's a handy modification they did to that truck. Maybe they can drive along, and when they come to a river, just keep driving into the water, chug across, and then drive up the other side. That's also useful in case of floods.

You can actually do that with most vehicles.
The modifications needed:
1) Seal certain components of the engine, including all of the electrical ones. Many engines come this way anymore; it prevents your engine from going kaput if you open the hood in heavy rain to give someone a jump or drive through a puddle too fast, as well as allowing for some nifty demonstrations on infomercials.
2) Raise the engine's air intake and exhaust above where the waterline will be, and seal that route. The routes are normally sealed already, but they will need to be raised in order to avoid drowning the engine. Raising the exhaust is only nesessary if you need to be able to start the engine while in the water.
3) Add a propeller, hooked up to the transmission in some fashion. This one is rather self-explainitory. It is often easier, although less convienient to run, to add an outboard motor.
4) Add boyancy. This is not needed for some cars, such as the old VW bug (while an old VW bug will sink eventually, it takes a while).

If those four (rather unspecific) steps are completed successfully on a well-running automobile, you will have an amphibious vehicle.

Note, however, that more work will be needed if you don't want to get your feet wet while on the water.

However, it is usually less time-consuming to find one of the ready-made amphibious vehicles, although they are usually horrifically expensive. On the plus side, they allow you to go boating without getting your feet wet.