A few photos of the Marlin

[Lance Dean]

I just wanted to thank Bill Lee for going out and getting these photos.  These are only a few of the many he took.  I think some good things are about to happen with the Marlin.

What an amazing little training sub.  It had a crew of 14!

[Mark Sarsfield]

Any berthing areas or is strictly a one-day trainer?

[Lance Dean]

It had a 14 member crew according to the sign.  I think I see bunks...looks about right.

[Mark Sarsfield]

I didn't think it had a torpedo room.  I like the sign that they posted above the top bunk.  We should hang one of those at the bottom of the FTR stairwell on Batfish.

[Viejo]

As you guys probably know these subs were built to give training to officers and also to be used as target boats by other boats. This freed up regular subs to do other duties. As some of you may have noticed, usually the only person on a sub that was good at shooting a torpedo was the skipper. So one of the things the Marlin and the others did after WWII was allow officers to come aboard and practice shooting torpedoes. They also had similar firing equipment so the people could practice setting up for shots also.
After the war, they were used as PR boats. They would travel up the Mississippi for aways and up the inland waterway on the East coast. They would stop at towns and give tours and helped out the recruiters. I had a shipmate on the Scorpion who had served on one of these and he said it was great duty.
The Marlin needs a lot of cleaning, but isn't in bad shape and most of the equipment is still there. Quite a unique museum boat that hopefully will be open again for the public someday. Not shown in these pictures is another space which had two bunks for officers. Sometimes, according to my shipmate, one officer was all that was onboard in the 50s with a senior enlisted acting as asst. Some of the spaces outboard the engines and equipment have to be navigated sideways.  The ship is quite similar in size and proportion to the USS Holland, our first sub.
Viejo

[Viejo]

I want to put up a couple of pictures of the Marlin I took last week when I was up there.  There are no bow planes on this boat and they have two wheels for controling the boat. One goes back and forth  and turns the other just turns. Thought maybe someone could tell me what the controls between them do and also there is a hammer valve to the right of the right wheel and i am not sure if it is connected to the steering or diving or to some other system. We are still trying to find plans for the Marlin, but so far haven't found any.
Viejo

[Tom Bowser]

The controls in the center are to shift your steering control from power to hand and to set the amount of stroke the pump (wheel) makes per turn. the large valve is the negative tank flood valve.
Tom

[Viejo]

Tom, thanks. Can you also tell me if you can choose which of these two wheels does the rudder;and if so, which control would change that? I assume the one to port does the planes as it goes back and forth, but both can turn. I have been looking at the manuals up on this site, but never know how much to assume that what is on the marlin is like what is on a regular sub. Well now that you tell me that, it says it on the valve. I never expected it to be that big. I have a picture of the trim manifold, guess I thought it would be there.
Thanks,
Bill

[Tom Bowser]

I believe the manifold in between the wheels is rudder only from what I can read on the plaque. You can pump to=from negative from trim and drain but the gig valve is to flodd directley from sea, much faster to get down in a hurry. There should be a gig valve in control to vent negative. The flood valve is the same as our safety tank flood valves also.
Tom

[Viejo]

Tom, thanks. I'll be writing all this down in notes. I do hope to get some of our diesel guys to come up to the boat and tell us what is what. I have finally determined after much searching, there is no ELT shack on here Wonder what they did without one? LOL
Bill

[Viejo]

I would like to post a couple of pictures of the radio equipment that is left on the Marlin so someone might be able to tell what the missing piece is. Looks like there is one small transmitter and two receivers and then a place for a bigger transmitter.
Thanks,
Bill

[Darrin]

Hey Bill,
there is an ELT shack on the Marlin.... It also functions as the head

It does look like you may be missing some radio equipment, but I am not a RM so I don't have much idea as to what is missing.

There are more online manuals posted that you might find interesting Bill, go to www.hnsa.org and look in the documents folder and you may find some stuff to help you with your boat

[Viejo]

Darrin, that wasn't nice. LOL  I have downloaded all the pages from HNSA, and am reading. But of course it doesn't mention the Mackerel class. I'll look and see what they had in receivers that look like what the marlin has. There is a Receiver panel that has eight connectors in it and they are all labled, so will see what might have been used with them.
Thanks,
Billl

[JTheotonio]

Well maybe you have to get the midget-manuals! 

[Viejo]

That's the problem, all this stuff is normal size, fitted into a shoe box  and then they expect some fat old man to crawl around in it.   
I remember when on the Snook and Scorpion that there were a lot of tight places, but at least I could walk down the passageways on them. Course I had a 30" waist and weighed 70# less. But I willl screen the Sea Cadets when they start coming aboard and find a couple that willl like to squirm around and get through small spaces.  I remember on the snook, one of my pals, Jerry Pratt, was small and slender and the old man kept turning down his transfer requests cause he was the only one that could reach one of our electronic pieces of gear to clean it. But it is going to be a lot of fun. Just waiting for warmer weather.
Viejo