Trustworthy

You are looking at the only submarine registered in the state of Kansas.  Yes, you read that right.  Submarine.  Kansas.

As I write this I am a few miles north of Salina, Kansas and that sub is sitting in a specially designed workshop behind the house I am staying in.  It was built by my Airbnb host, Scott Waters, over a 5-year period.  Scott is 31 years old and has been fascinated by underwater adventure and submarines since seeing the Disney classic “20,000 Leagues under the Sea” as a kid.

Salina is about 60 miles northeast of the center of Kansas and less than 100 miles southeast of the center of the lower 48 states, perhaps the last place you’d expect to find a submarine.  Scott likes to say “yeah, but it’s just as close to the Pacific Ocean as it is to the Atlantic.”

Trustworthy is 14 feet long, 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide.  She weighs 4,500 pounds and is  named after the first character trait in the Boy Scout code (among his other accomplishments, Scott is an Eagle Scout).  She can hold two people and achieve a depth of 350 feet, about two and a half times the depth a scuba diver can safely descend to.

But wait… there’s more.  As cool as this project was, wait until you see what Scott’s next endeavor is….

Take a look at the next post.