Photos from visit to DOER Marine in Alameda, CA. DOER was founded in 1992 by Sylvia Earle as Deep Ocean Exploration & Research, a marine consulting firm. DOER Marine is now led by her daughter, Liz Taylor, who along with Director of Marine Operations Ian Griffith, has expanded the scope of the company to customized design and building of submersibles and all manner of subsea robotics and related instrumentation. Pictured is the DeepWorker 1-person submersible, made famous during Sylvia Earle's Sustainable Seas Expeditions in the late 1990s/early 2000s.
Liz Taylor describing some of the features of the DeepWorker class of subs.
The entrance to DOER is graced by 2 granite sculptures made by the artist Viktor who has made a whole series of these honoring deep ocean exploration pioneers. This sculpture is of Austrian diving and underwater photography pioneers Hans and Lotte Hass, known for their shark documentaries.
"Signed" on the back by Hans and Latte.
This sculpture by Viktor is of Phil Nuytten, Canadian deep ocean explorer, scientist, and inventor of the "Newtsuit" diving suit. His equipment is used by the National Geographic, NASA, and dozens of navies and offshore oil & gas companies worldwide.
The other granite sculptures in Viktor's series were moved to the Google campus.
An ROV in development including a robotic arm similar to the one that DOER fabricated for Jim Cameron's Deepsea Challenger sub for his dive into the Marianas Trench.
Jim Costopulos of Global Oceans examines the famous robotic arm.
Liz describes an ROV in development for use within a borehole throught the Antarctic sea ice to take a number of scientific measurements BENEATH the sea ice, including multibeam sonar!
An amazing vehicle that will take quite some doing to transport across the Antarctic ice before deployment INto the borehole.
Another vehicle that will drill and retrieve cores of compacted glacial sediment (consistency of hardened cement) in Antarctica. The whole assembly must be lowered and retrieve in order to get the core.
A brand new winch and cable for use in Antarctic waters.
DOER manufactures their own parts in milling machines such as this one.
A part being carved out of a block of aluminum.
View with the window open.
One of the results.
Fabrication of a small propeller for a vehicle
That's a pretty hefty wrench!
Model of a personnel sphere that will be used in new subs such as the Ocean Explorer HOV 1000, www.doermarine.com
Concept graphic for the DOER Ocean Explorer HOV 1000, for depths approaching 1000 m. But DOER can build a submersible capable at working at full ocean depth throughout the entire water column (e.g., www.deepsearch.org), and able to STOP at various depths in the water column rather than having to sink all the way to the bottom.
The fun part of the hangar where the DOER engineers tinker with their own pet projects, such as rebuilding jeeps and land rovers, or refurbishing their own yacht.
