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J. Louis Reynolds (left) teamed with inventor and submarine designer Simon Lake to develop an aluminum submersible. (Photo courtesy Science Museum of Virginia)
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Tyler reunites with the Aluminaut at the Science Museum of Virginia. (Photo by Dominic Hernandez)
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George Tyler (center, in scuba suit) and crew during the Alvin recovery (Photo courtesy George Tyler)
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The Aluminaut in action (Photo courtesy Science Museum of Virginia)
A hydrogen bomb plunged into 3,000 feet of water off the coast of Spain. A deep ocean submersible sank nearly a mile below the surface near Massachusetts. In both cases, the vessel dispatched to retrieve them originated from Reynolds Metals Co.
The firm, headquartered in Richmond from 1921-2000 (when Alcoa acquired it), provided the world with the aluminum drink can, the pop top and Reynolds Wrap — the stuff used for the crinkly Markel Building near Willow Lawn. Reynolds also built one of the deepest-diving man-made objects, the Aluminaut. And you can see it behind the Science Museum of Virginia.
How the vessel came to be permanently docked there is a whale of a tale.
J. Louis Reynolds, chairman of Reynolds International, Inc., started tinkering with the concept of a deep submersible in 1942, during World War II. He viewed the oceans as a vast frontier of opportunities for scientific research, mineral discovery and food propagation. He teamed with inventor and submarine designer Simon Lake, but other demands and the need for extensive study kept the idea from coming to fruition for almost two decades.
Reynolds challenged his company’s scientists and engineers to create a vessel of resilient material sturdy enough to withstand depths up to 15,000 feet, where 7,000 pounds of pressure push against every square inch. Aluminum alloy provided both the necessary strength and corrosion resistance. The craft needed to carry up to six crew members and scientists while being nimble and powerful enough to navigate at these great depths and, using mechanical arms, pick objects up from the ocean floor.
The Aluminaut, the most advanced submarine of its day, was launched in 1964 at the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics in Groton, Connecticut. Louis Reynolds tried negotiating with the Navy to base the submersible at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. But the Aluminaut instead went to Miami and became a for-hire proposition.
On Oct. 16, 1968, the vessel was called into action. The submersible Alvin, built the same year as the Aluminaut but operated by the Navy, was undergoing transport when its hauling cables snapped. The three crew members scrambled to safety, but the Alvin plummeted 4,900 feet to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean south of Nantucket Island. Louisa County resident George Tyler, who served from 1962-66 on the Navy’s diesel-electric sub USS Grampus, co-piloted the Aluminaut with Robert Canary. The Navy research vessel Mizar located the Alvin on the seabed with its hatch open. Although no previous attempt had been made to recover anything from that far down, the Navy hired the Aluminaut to attach a toggle to the Alvin for the Mizar to lift. When the boat’s lights swept across the Alvin, it was an eerie sight.
“Another submersible filled with water on the ocean floor — pretty devastating to look at,” Tyler recalls. The Aluminaut and the Alvin had met previously during the 1966 H-bomb recovery off Spain — the first such rendezvous.
The Aluminaut dove twice to retrieve the Alvin; the first attempt was scrubbed due to interference from seas whipped up by Hurricane Camille, the second, in August 1969, was hampered by a two-knot current and the Alvin’s slant. The Aluminaut could only move at a rate of three knots per hour. Hovering 15 feet above the craft, “We used the manipulator claws to hold the Alvin,” at first trying to insert the toggle bar through two hatches 4 feet apart. This proved impossible.
A 1971 Popular Science article quotes Canary describing how the crew ran to the aft of the 51-foot boat, then forward to make the mechanical claw karate-chop the Alvin’s fiberglass superstructure. After picking away debris, the Aluminaut dropped in the toggle that unfolded support wings inside the submersible and connected to a mile-long hawser dropped by the Mizar. Each dive took 14 hours — the longest Tyler spent beneath the surface.
Later, the Alvin underwent a complete refurbishing that included a titanium hull. In 1986, operating out of Woods Hole with oceanographer Robert Ballard, it located the wreck of the Titanic. Much upgraded, the Alvin remains in service with the Navy.
The Aluminaut, in its 251 dives, conducted scientific research, recovered data recorders from experimental torpedoes, repaired cables, discovered mineral deposits and set depth records. But in 1971, all that came to an end.
“The bean counters in Richmond pulled the plug on us,” Tyler says. The Aluminaut was carted away to a Quonset hut in Jacksonville, Florida, and Tyler continued as a metallurgist at Reynolds until his retirement. Some years later, he took on contract work for the late Rodney Hanneman, then vice president for research and development at Reynolds Metals and a board member of the Science Museum. Reynolds wanted Hanneman to “do something with the Aluminaut,” Tyler says. Hanneman asked him how much the 80-ton sub would fetch in scrap. “ ‘Oh, for God’s sake, you’re not thinking of scrapping it?’ ” Tyler says he blurted out.
Thanks to a $100,000 grant, Tyler instead oversaw the Aluminaut’s transfer in 1993 from Jacksonville via the Intercoastal Waterway to the Port of Richmond, and its transport to the museum. Tyler describes his reunion with the Aluminaut: “It was funny … like a World War II fighter pilot seeing his old plane again. It was an emotional experience. When I went inside, it smelled the same; unwashed bodies and sea water.”
Now 75, Tyler and his wife raise orchids in Louisa. “We had many adventures,” he says, of the Aluminaut and the crew. “I’m glad people have the opportunity to go and see it.”
