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Carolyn’s 10-year Aegean Voyage for INA

William Kohnen, President/CEO
SEAmagine Hydrospace Corporation

After a month long ocean voyage, this time above the waves, INA’s well loved and much used submersible, Carolyn arrived in Galveston, Texas. Finishing the journey over land, the acrylic sphere and spaceship-like hull wrapped for protection, Carolyn made the final trek to the SEAmagine Hydrospace Corporation in Claremont, California where she is undergoing a ten-year "check-up" and overhaul.

INA's founder, Dr. George F. Bass, was a pioneer in the use of research submersibles for archaeology and he commissioned the world's first submersible specifically designed for the task from the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics. Launched in May 1964, Asherah was eventually sold because of the high cost of the liability insurance, but George Bass remained committed to the idea. In the early 1990s, after visiting manufacturers in Europe, Asia, and North America he decided to have SEAmagine Hydrospace Corporation, design and build a new sub for INA. With funding from the Institute for Aegean Prehistory, the two-person Carolyn (named after the wife of Malcolm Wiener, founder of that institute) was the result.

To tend Carolyn, INA also built the forty-five-foot catamaran Millawanda, named after the Hittite name for the ancient coastal city of Miletus. Designed by Merih Karaba, who had accompanied George Bass on a diving survey in 1973, Millawanda became a perfect launching and retrieval platform for coastal waters in the Aegean. 

In May 2000, Carolyn arrived in Izmir and I was there to meet Dr. Bass and the sub as it arrived in Bodrum. Three weeks sped by as Milliwanda was readied for its first deployment. Carolyn’s initial dive in the Aegean, for which I acted as pilot with Dr. Bass, was a systems check to ensure that everything was in perfect order. A year later, in fall 2001, Carolyn undertook her first full scale expedition. In one month Dr. Bass and his crew located 14 ancient wrecks and ten probable wrecks, while diving on a dozen wrecks known from earlier years to take GPS bearings. George Bass had waited decades for a submersible vehicle that would provide him with the access and visibility he had dreamed of since the days of Asherah. The ability to supervise, travel and explore at will, extended archaeological access and bottom time to levels that were impossible to achieve with scuba diving alone.

After nearly a decade in service, the time has come for Carolyn to head home for a check-up and refit. When she arrived back in Claremont on July 28th the sub looked in good order, and we are now beginning to go through a long check list as we assess Carolyn closely. INA has talked of future use of the sub back in Turkey, accompanying Dr. Bass's planned 50th anniversary return to the Cape Gelidonya wreck, and has also discussed sending Carolyn to assist in ongoing survey work in Albania. SEAmagine will work with INA to make sure that Carolyn is ready for those and any other tasks as she faces her next decade in service.