Go look up the Carl Straat diving bell ship. It's insane to think that it's possible for people to walk on the bottom of a river in regular clothes and rubber boots. There's no special equipment except for the boat and compressed air.

Show Notes:

Carl Straat diving bell ship (the video Amy watches during the episode): https://www.tiktok.com/@machinepix/video/7255824577534725418

wocomoMOTORS video short

Ship technology magazine article on the Carl Straat

How the ship works, interview with the captain: https://www.damen.com/insights-center/articles/your-questions-answered-the-german-diving-bell-vessel

Need more weird ships? Check out this wiki of the now decommissioned R/P FLIP

Transcript

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to Brain Junk. I'm Amy Barton.

[00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Trace Kerr. And today is everything you never knew you wanted to know about diving bell ships.

[00:00:13] Speaker A: I am delighted by swimming, but terrified of drowning. So I'm sort of morbidly fascinated with anything with the word diving. And then this gives me those old timey. Yeah, I'm curious.

[00:00:25] Speaker B: Yeah. This is going to give you the heebie gajibis.

This all takes place on the Rhine river, which goes from Switzerland through Germany and the Netherlands out to the North Sea. You know what a river through so many developed cities needs? A riverbed cleaning crew.

[00:00:42] Speaker C: Yes.

[00:00:43] Speaker B: So I'm going to send you a TikTok of the Carl strot diving bell ship doing its job.

[00:00:48] Speaker A: Oh, this is much more modern than I expected. I expected old timey.

[00:00:53] Speaker B: Right.

[00:00:54] Speaker A: This is going to scare me more.

[00:00:57] Speaker B: It's going to.

[00:00:59] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh! I can't wait to hear about the things they have found.

Does it make a pressurized cabin on the floor?

[00:01:07] Speaker B: It does.

[00:01:11] Speaker A: Okay. I might have to conquer my fear and get an internship there.

[00:01:15] Speaker B: That is wild. Yeah.

[00:01:19] Speaker B: So what Amy's looking at there is a floating tugboat. It's quite long, very flat, just above the surface of the water. It looks almost like a floating rectangle as opposed to a boat, and has a huge boom, almost like a crane that splits down the middle of the boat. And it reminds me of like a vacuum cleaner attachment with a rectangular room on that far end. And that room that's on the end is open at the bottom and compressed air is pumped into the arm to keep water out of the room. Have you seen it touch down on the riverbed?

[00:01:52] Speaker A: But it's wild.

[00:01:53] Speaker A: It's like a dry river bottom.

[00:01:55] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:01:56] Speaker A: And they're just roaming around, picking up like an old plate.

I wonder how much effort it takes to move it. Or if they can kind of slowly cook along, or if they have to lift up and pressurize. Sit down and pressurize every time.

[00:02:14] Speaker B: I have so many answers to your questions. Okay.

[00:02:17] Speaker A: I'm going to stop talking.

[00:02:18] Speaker B: So this is in the show notes.

[00:02:20] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:02:20] Speaker B: So go and watch the TikTok. So the boat picks a spot and th...

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