DSV Shinkai 2000

Shinnkai 2000
History
 JapanJapan
NameShinkai 2000
BuilderMitsubishi Heavy Industries Kobe Shipyard
Cost3.7billion (Japanese yen)
Laid down1978
Launched1981
Sponsored byJAMSTEC
Completed1981
Acquired1981
Commissioned1981
Decommissioned2004
Maiden voyage1983
In service1983
Out of service2002
HomeportYokosuka
StatusPreserved at Shin Enoshima aquarium
General characteristics
TypeDeep-submergence vehicle
Length9.3 m (31 ft)
Beam2.9 m (9.5 ft)
Draft3.0 m (9.8 ft)
Installed powerelectric motor
Speed3.0 knots (5.6 km/h; 3.5 mph)
Endurance80h
Test depth2,000 m (6,600 ft)
Complement3

The Shinkai 2000 (しんかい) was a crewed research submersible that could dive up to a depth of 2,000 meters. It was completed in 1981 and until 1991 it had the greatest depth range of any crewed research vehicle in Japan. The Shinkai 2000 was owned and run by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) and it was launched from the support vessel Natsushima.

Two pilots and one researcher operated within a 30 mm thick High-strength low-alloy steel pressure hull with an internal diameter of 2.2 meters. Buoyancy was provided by syntactic foam.

Three methacrylate resin view ports were arranged at the front and on each side of the vehicle.[1] [2] The deep diving submersible Shinkai 2000 is eponymous for the genus Shinkai- polychaete worms of the family Chrysopetalidae. Bivalves hosting those parasitic polychaetes were collected during Dives 315 and 381 in the Hatsushima cold-seep site in Sagami Bay.[3] The submersible is also eponymous for the species Margarites shinkai.[4]

Preserved at Enoshima Aquarium, Enoshima Island, Fujisawa, Kanagawa

  1. ^ Endo, Michimasa (1982). 2000m Deep Submergence Research Vehicle "SHINKAI 2000". OCEANS 82. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. pp. 41–49. doi:10.1109/OCEANS.1982.1151715.
  2. ^ Kawahara, Tsutomu; Suzuki, Takashi; Kurokawa, Takehiko (1982). Silver-Zinc Battery Power System for 2,000m Deep Submergence Research Vehicle "SHINKAI 2000". OCEANS 82. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. pp. 50–56. doi:10.1109/OCEANS.1982.1151716.
  3. ^ "Shinkai Miura & Laubier, 1990". World Register of Marine Species. 2022. Retrieved 2022-05-20.
  4. ^ Okutani, Takashi; Tsuchida, Eiji; Fujikura, Katsunori (1992). "Five Bathyal Gastropods Living within or near the Calyptogena–Community of the Hatsushima Islet, Sagami Bay". Venus (Japanese Journal of Malacology). 51 (3): 137–148. doi:10.18941/venusjjm.51.3_137.