originally published July 27, 2007

Body Glove teams with futuristic yacht and submarine builders to explore the ocean depths

SEAmagine’s three person submersible, the Triumph.

by  Mark McDermott

On June 21, there was an unusual sighting in the murky waters off the Redondo Beach breakwater. It began with a slight disturbance on the surface, and then the water gradually began to brighten, bubble and suck. Finally, a sphere began to emerge from the deep.

On the deck of the Body Glove yacht, Disappearance, people scampered to get a look. Men gasped, cameras zoomed, and Body Glove co-founder Bob Meistrell calmly finished eating a cold-cut sandwich. By now, the sphere had risen from the ocean, water streaming down its transparent surface. Two men were visible inside, one operating what looked like a joystick, guiding the unusual vessel to the stern of the Disappearance.

As the sphere opened, Jim Miller stood up and stepped onto the yacht’s stern. Meistrell was waiting for him with an outstretched hand.

“Welcome,” he said, “to the submariners club.”

It is not a very big club. In the history of travel upon this Earth, millions of human beings have ascended miles above the globe and millions have traversed the surface of its oceans. Very few, however, have gone more than a few feet underwater, even though the watery parts of the world comprise 70 percent of our planet’s surface. It is a terrain that remains unknowable to almost all of humanity, simply because there is no way for most of us to get there.

Miller was no stranger to the underwater world. He’d logged many hours as a diver, and his father served aboard two WWII submarines, the USS Spearfish and the USS Razorback. But this was his first time aboard a submarine, and he disembarked with an undisguised feeling of bliss. It was like he’d just seen a new world.

“Awesome,” he said. “Just wild. It is so quiet, so beautiful. It is just the feeling of being in true inner space.”

The submarine he’d just dived in may represent the next great wave of the exploration of our planet. A new partnership – created by adventure entrepreneur Steven Alan Fry, headed by Miller, and backed by both Meistrell and filmmaker Jean Michel Cousteau –  aims to expand “club sub” and in so doing greatly expand the scientific knowledge of the planet’s oceans. Their vision is to build a dozen state-of-the-art, environmentally sensitive “Trekker” yachts, each of which would traverse its own section of the Earth’s oceans. Each would serve as a roving scientific laboratory, staffed by marine biologists, and would be equipped with two three-man submarines built by the same company, SEAmagine, that was testing its two-man sub in Redondo in June.

The operation, which as yet does not have a name, would be multi-faceted. The yachts would offer “eco-adventures” for wealthy tourists, guided tours of some of the world’s most stunning marine environments that would simultaneously be working scientific voyages, producing a constant stream of data. The tourists would not only be providing the funding – which would ultimately create, through the 12 yachts, a unique, worldwide network of constantly updated marine data – but would also themselves become ambassadors for the deep.

“The ocean is a landscape that, to understand it, requires we be immersed within it,” Cousteau writes in the project’s business plan.

The fleet of yachts and submarines would also serve as a new platform for Cousteau’s explorations. The filmmaker, who is the son of diving pioneer and filmmaker Jacques Cousteau, has made over 70 films himself. He plans to use the fleet not only as a source of revenue for his nonprofit Ocean Futures Society, but also as the vessels from which his future filming projects will be based. Cousteau has proven how effective such work can be: his 2004 “Voyage to Kure” PBS documentary attracted the President’s attention and lead to the designation of the majority of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, a 1,200-mile long string  of islands and atolls, as the largest marine reserve in the world.

The two dozen submarines aboard the yachts would be the largest fleet of submersibles in the world. The submarines, which are capable of going 300 to 3,000 feet deep, would create more sustained access to the oceanic landscape than has ever existed before.

Marine science and human understanding of the oceans, Miller says, would take a giant leap forward.

“The correct way to put it is we know much more about the moon and Mars than we do the undersea world,” he said. “In particular, what we know about the undersea world is mostly right there at about 100 ft. or 200 ft. With these yachts and subs, there is a way to take scientists and everyone else down 1,500 ft. and dramatically expand man’s experience and vision of what is down there.”

The submariners

Will Kohnen wanted to fly.

As a young boy growing up in on a Quebec farm, his imagination was in the sky. He was from a family of eight that had migrated to the greener fields of Canada from Germany in 1965, when he was a very young child. He had a natural aptitude for machinery, and had the opportunity to practice it with a variety of farm equipment. By the time he attended McGill University to study aerospace engineering, he had more hands-on mechanical experience than most of his classmates.

In 1984, he was still in college when he had a startling experience while on vacation in Mexico. It was what he calls a “fresh off the farm, cliché moment.” He was diving in the ocean for the first time in his life and became mesmerized by all the amazing colors and forms.

“We’d been there for a long time when I lifted my head and realized I was only an inch or two underwater,” Kohnen recalled. “I went, ‘Holy Moley!’ because I truly thought I was deep underwater. It really dawned on me –  this world I had never before seen in my life, it wasn’t miles away. It was just below the water. It is amazing how long you can be right near the water and never see what is under it.”

He nursed this new, quiet obsession even as he launched his career and began work on such things as space station robots and satellite technology. By 1991, he had formed a clear idea of what he wanted to do. Like Frank Robinson, the Torrance-based entrepreneur who’d left behind a successful aerospace engineering career to build helicopters for a civilian market – almost single-handedly creating a new market – Kohnen wanted to build small, simple submarines that would open up the oceans to more people.

His notion wasn’t to reinvent the submarine, but to create a new notion for the use of submarines: general hydrospace. The concept reached back to his “Aha!” moment down in Mexico.

“Hydrospace as an industry is part of a future that is coming, and it should be no less technologically broad than aerospace,” Kohnen said. “The applications are endless. I mean, where is recreational hydrospace? Where is civil hydrospace? There is no general hydrospace. You’ve got to be kidding me, that in the next 100 years that stays blank. There is just no way. It defies any sense of logical deduction.”

Of course, the biggest and most immediate application would be scientific. Currently, marine research is only rarely conducted by submarine because the vessels are few in number and prohibitively expensive. Some research is conducted by divers, but that is limited to 100 to 200 ft. depths with dives that last perhaps 20 minutes. Kohnen likens the situation to forest rangers doing their work only from the sky. “You’ve got to go into the woods,” he said. “You don’t do that from a satellite.”

When he decided to form his own company, SEAmagine Hydrospace Corporation, the first person he asked to join him was his brother Charlie, an electrical engineer who’d been working in the oil exploration industry in Africa and Asia. They were driving through Simi Valley on the 210 Freeway when Will made his pitch –  that Charlie join him in trying to essentially create a whole new industry.

“He just looked at me and said, ‘That’s pretty cool,’” Will remembered. “He’s regretted the buy-in ever since. We were in a gold Toyota Corolla chugging up the hill.”

The company was formed in 1995, based, in all places, in a warehouse in Claremont. The brothers brought in two of Charlie’s friends from the oil industry – Ian Sheard as chief technology officer and Peter Skalski as chief financial officer – and set about designing a submarine unlike anything the world had seen before. It is remarkable for its utter simplicity. The sub operates underwater electrical propulsion engines and carries  rechargeable batteries that allowed it to operate up to eight hours a day; other features included pontoon-like flotation system and an air scrubber system gives occupants up to 72 hours of oxygen. At a price tag of $500,000, the subs are relatively affordable – compared to most submarines, anyway – and they are simple to operate and maintain.

But the real brilliance of the design is the sphere.  The SEAmagine submarine is characterized by a large acrylic spherical cabin, far forward on the vehicle, that allows full visibility all around and directly below. Perhaps owing to Kohnen’s original underwater revelation, these machines are built so that passengers can really see, a complete visibility is very rare underwater. It is a revolutionary way to experience the ocean environment.

Pilot Ian Sheard inside the sub, down under.

“It’s great,” said Bob Meistrell. “You are sitting in a ball and you don’t have that claustrophobic affect. They call a lot of submarines steel coffins, but this is different. You aren’t in a steel tube.”

“You are down there in total comfort, not limited by a scuba tank, not limited by worrying about surface bottom time or anything like that, and of course you’ve got the ability to sit there and talk, to operate a camera, and to truly observe this quiet and magnificent atmosphere,” Miller said. “You are not blowing bubbles. You are just quietly observing the undersea world.”

The company produced a prototype in 1997, and then waited for the market to respond to what they felt was obvious – the age of general hydrospace. They are still waiting. The company has built seven submarines for specific buyers and quietly gained recognition for their innovative design – Vogue even did a fashion photo spread with a SEAmagine submarine as a backdrop – and has compiled a flawless safety record of more than 7,000 dives without a single incident.

Their wait may finally have paid dividends. With the arrival of the Body Glove-Cousteau-Trekker partnership, SEAmagine is about to gain exposure that could give broader credence to the notion of general hydrospace. At any rate, the two farm boys from Quebec have remained largely undaunted. Although Kohnen acknowledges that he is “terribly grateful to still be married” after enduring trials of setting out on his own, financially challenging path, he likens it to a family working together on a farm.

“Sometimes you just have to tighten your belts,” he said. “There is a general hydrospace out there for the next generation, and that is where we are laying the groundwork….Our aspirations should be high, lest we shoot so low we attain that goal and are still in the mud.”

Kohnen, in an unexpected way, has already achieved his childhood dream of flying.

“It is a very sophisticated flying devise, really,” said Fry of the SEAmagine submarine. “It just flies underwater. The operator is called a pilot, so it is a form of flight. It is just flying in inner space.”

The partnership

Steven Alan Fry loved to fly.

He was, in fact, a pioneer in perhaps the most purely recreational form of aviation. More than three decades ago – when it was still known as “sky surfing” – Fry was a hang gliding enthusiast known in flying circles as the “SoCal Kid.”

But Fry is a peripatetic sort. He likes to go up, down, and all around. He studied underwater photography at Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara but has spent most his life as a “serial entrepreneur,” launching 10 different companies and building, among other things, the first dedicated flight park in the country. He is also hot rod enthusiast going back to his teenage years in Pasadena, and actually made his biggest fortune designing automobile and truck accessories (most notably tail gate nets for pick up trucks, a product for which his Pro Runner brand is still the industry leader).

But like nearly everybody in this story, Fry’s epiphany came underwater. In 2003, he’d just turned 50 and decided to take a short break and go diving off Catalina Island.

“I went to the backside of Catalina and was diving by myself,” he recalled. “I hadn’t been there for many years, and it was substantially changed. It was quite upsetting. I had just turned 50, and I was ready to do my next big thing.”

Since he was a teenager, Fry had kept a folder he labeled “super ship” to which he added any boat design features or ideas that struck his fancy. Somewhere in his mind, he always planned on building what he considered the ultimate yacht, and the idea that began forming that day in Catalina was going to borrow and pay homage to his three biggest heroes: James Bond, Walt Disney, and Jacques Cousteau.

“But Jacques Cousteau was my main man,” he recalled.

Most particularly, his vision coalesced around the notion of building the next generation of Cousteau’s famous ship, the Calypso, and doing it with the imaginative verve of Disney and the cool gadgetry of James Bond.

Thus was born trekker yachts. The “adventure class” yachts, most of which would be 165 ft. long, would be fitted with an array of water-going toys – everything needed to surf, sail, wakeboard, paddle, fish, photograph, dive, and enjoy the ocean in as many ways as possible. Like the submarines they will carry, the yachts feature a transparent, forward control center/observation deck that will allow 360 degree visibility. And each yacht will come equipped with 12 lush staterooms.

Fry’s connection to both Jean Michel Cousteau and Bob Meistrell occurred through Jim Miller. The Manhattan Beach resident is a self-professed “recovering lawyer” who had a successful career with the Securities Exchange Commission before focusing his attentions on his greatest passions, which were diving, sailing, and doing whatever he could to be around and in the ocean.

Miller was crewing on a sail boat when he met a friend of Fry’s who told him about the Trekker idea. Miller knew Cousteau, whom he had met when they served together on the board of the International Seakeepers. He had known the Meistrell family for decades and represented Body Glove in various business ventures. When he met Fry, they connected the dots.

The common thread shared by everybody involved was the desire to broaden an emerging environmental ethos of protection for the ocean. The yachts themselves are designed to be built from marine-grade, unpainted aluminum, utilizing recyclable material and avoiding the many highly toxic chemicals used to treat most ships. But the biggest attraction was simply the idea of doing business while simultaneously expanding knowledge of the ocean.

“We are doing this to have a blast, make money, and provide an example of the new age company that takes the environment into consideration from day one, maybe even hour one,” Fry said.

Pilot Ian Sheard brings the SEAmagine to surface near King Harbor. His passenger is International Seakeeper president Tom Houston. Photo

“It’s got a true component of really doing important marine science and ocean environmental work, collecting data about the oceans and making that available as part of a global network of information,” Miller said. “So it’s not just going out to have an adventure and be on a world class yacht, it’s also doing really good things. That is what appealed to all of us. It is a business venture, but it’s an ocean environmental business, and that is what attracted Jean Michel Cousteau and Bob Meistrell.”

Meistrell is an environmentalist in a way that is so ingrained that it is not even remotely political. Decades before anybody had notion of declaring “Earth Day,” Meistrell was sponsoring underwater cleanup days off the Redondo coast. And a quarter of century before regulatory agencies took action, he realized that black sea bass – a fish that he and his brother Bill speared in 1956 – were endangered and needed protection. Now, another 25 years since the species gained legal protection – partly through his constant lobbying efforts – the 78-year-old Meistrell loves to dive in their midst. He tells a story about an almost monstrously large bass nudging him underwater off Catalina last year, and the two hung around each other for several minutes, the old diver petting the oddly companionable fish.

Meistrell has devoted his entire life to being out there, as deeply immersed in the marine environment as has been humanly possible. And his life’s work – co-founding Body Glove and helping invent the neoprene wetsuits that opened up the ocean to literally millions of people – has simultaneously helped raise environmental consciousness.

It didn’t take long for Meistrell to get sold on the idea of partnering in the Trekker venture.

“It’s a no-brainer,” he said. “Everybody involved does things the right way. That’s why I’m getting involved in it.”

Meistrell is also a lifelong submarine enthusiast. When he and his brother Bill arrived in California in 1944 from Boonville, Mo., they brought a homemade dive helmet and dreams of one day owning their own submarine. In 1975, they bought one from Torrance-based submarine builder Don Sevrins. Meistrell saw the possibilities of using submarines for tourism when he chartered a trip to Catalina for a friend and took several of the charter group down under in his sub.

“I sent him a fairly large bill, then called him up and asked, ‘Are you happy?’” Meistrell said.

“I’m ecstatic,” his friend replied. “I mean, how many people get a chance to ride in a submarine? It’s ridiculous. Hardly any at all. It’s the best money I ever spent.”

“There are a certain amount of people in the world who aren’t ever going to be divers,” Meistrell said. “There is no doubt about that. But anyone could go down in a submarine.”

The challenge

The partnership is currently searching for an investment of about $15 million, which Fry notes is about the cost of an NFL lineman. The $15 million will be used to obtain a larger loan and build the first “scout” Trekker yacht. It will only be 90-ft. long, but will start providing the revenue to begin building the rest of the fleet.

Ticket prices will be about $20,000 for a seven-day cruise, which sounds like a lot but isn’t,  not in the world of high-end travel. Seven days fly fishing in Chile aboard luxury expedition yacht costs $25,000, while a week in a French castle costs $50,000 and a seven day journey up Mt. Everest costs $65,000.

What most of those involved believe is that “Club Sub” will only be the beginning. If the plan proceeds successfully, all involved will benefit – Fry will realize his dreams, Cousteau will increase his access to world’s oceans, and Body Glove will greatly increase its brand name visibility. Perhaps the biggest winners will be SEAmagine, whose spherical underwater flying machines will finally become lodged in the public imagination, perhaps spawning a new era of hydrospace exploration.

According to Dr. George Bass of Texas A&M University, that age has already begun. Bass, a nautical archeologist, has been using a two-man SEAmagine sub to search for ancient shipwrecks. The sub, he said, has revolutionized his work.

“For 47 years I have been searching for and excavating ancient shipwrecks, mostly off the southwest coast of Turkey,” he said. “Over those years, [my team] have located over 200 wrecks, but we were guided to most of them by sponge divers who had spent their lives searching the seabed for sponges. Now the sponge-diving industry is dying out, so we must depend on ourselves for finding new and important sites to explore…we are dependent on eyesight to find ancient wrecks. But divers cannot swim for more than about 20 minutes, twice a day, at, say, 140 feet…With Carolyn we can dive for hours at a time. We cruise at a depth of about 150 feet, able to see in all directions from the clear acrylic sphere in which we sit. From that depth, in the clear water of the eastern Mediterranean, we can see the wrecks on a sloping seabed between 80 and 200 feet deep.”

In Bass’s last full-scale survey, in just one month he and his team used the submarine to find 14 ancient wrecks and another 10 possible wrecks. It was the most success survey ever done for ancient wrecks, including the first Archaic Greek shipwreck (seventh century BC) ever located in the eastern Mediterranean.

The submarine, by increasing access to the ocean, has the capability of helping science to not only better understand the marine environment, but even human history. As more scientists are able to use the new submersibles, Kohnen believes there will be an exponential growth in all kinds of oceanic discovery.

“I often think, ‘Where is all the explorer’s blood in the world today?’” he said. “Where did that drive go to see another world? Two hundred years ago, a hell of lot of people had that drive. Today, this is as close as you are going to come to exploring a different world. I think one of things young people need to understand is that engineering is an entryway for that…We are doing a lot of trailblazing. Engineering will get you to a different world. They are not always geographic, but they are there.” ER

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