Dutch invests in private submarines and creates Nemo version, with two seats

On the sheltered south coast of Curaçao, a tropical island in the Antilles, 40 miles north of Venezuela, sits a massive Cold War-era Dutch navy ship that harbors something remarkable.

The boat serves as the Caribbean outpost of U-Boat Worx, a Dutch-based personal submarine builder that hopes to bring its underwater machines to the masses. I was there to test out an extraordinary experiment that, until recently, would have been out of reach for all but the richest.

This particular beach, with its constantly calm sea, was ideal for a dip down to a seabed as dark and strange as the hidden surface of the moon.

The submersible I entered (U-Boat Worx’s Super Yacht Sub 3) followed an algae-covered guide rope across the island’s steep terrain until the sunlight disappeared.

The color of the water changed from emerald green to purplish blue, then storm gray, and finally an unyielding darkness with swirling “sea snow” (particles of organic matter).

Since their invention in the 17th century, submarines have been used primarily for warfare, commerce, and science. Now they have become the last frontier of leisure cruises.

“In 2007, we went to the Monaco Yacht Show to introduce our submarines to boaters, and people thought it was a joke,” said Erik Hasselman, commercial director for U-Boat Worx, speaking in Dutch-accented English.

“They thought we were a bunch of crazy students with a prototype, and nobody thought it was real. So a bunch of superyacht owners started buying them, and now everyone who owns a yacht over 150 feet ) are at least considering buying one.”

To date, U-Boat Worx has sold 40 submarines and has 15 more in production. Depending on the make and model, personal submarines tend to range from US$2.5 million to US$3.5 million (R$12.6 million to R$17.7 million) – excluding the yacht price of US$ $35 million (R$177 million).

But U-Boat Worx recently released a series of cheaper two-seater models, called Nemo, with standard features and a simpler operating system that doesn’t require a professional.

U-Boat Worx offers Nemo owners a two-week training course that includes theory and 20 experience dives. It costs $1 million — the price of, say, a very nice house in the suburbs of New York.

In its mission to sell more submersibles, the company is launching a co-ownership program based in Curacao and Bonaire in the Netherlands Antilles and southern France that allows customers to split the cost of ownership into eighths (plus training), for around US$ 154 thousand (R$ 780 thousand) each.

In other words, ownership of the submarine can now be enjoyed by a particularly successful dentist.

Hasselman suggested that U-Boat Worx vessels are among the safest modes of transport in the world. “We’ve done 3,700 dives without incident,” he said with a smile.

The unlikely catalyst for the personal submarine’s success was the cruise industry. “In 2015, we made our first delivery to a cruise line,” said Hasselman, “and that changed the general perception because it’s a big deal. If a cruise company is doing something, then it has to be proven and foolproof.”

Today, several cruise lines use submarines to satisfy their guests’ adventurous desires. For example, Seabourn Cruise Line treats its Arctic and Antarctic excursions like safaris — bringing ornithologists, marine biologists, geologists and other experts as part of the package.

Submarines play a vital role in these experiments. A seat aboard a 45-minute polar dive starts at US$899. At a time when an envy-inducing video posted on social media is something of a currency, for some, this is a good investment.

Personal submarines aren’t just for cruising. Carl Allen, a businessman who sold his family’s business in 2016, owns a vessel built by Triton Submarines, U-Boat Worx’s main competitor.

Florida-based Triton is best known for taking financier and adventurer Victor Vescovo to the deepest part of the Mariana Trench – 11 kilometers below sea level – in a titanium-hulled model in 2019. Vescovo’s vessel broke a depth record previously held by filmmaker James Cameron of “Titanic”.

Allen also owns Walker’s Cay, an island in the northern Bahamas, and uses it as a base for a submarine-equipped treasure hunt operation.

“Once you get below about 45 meters, there’s a good chance you’ll see something no one else has ever seen,” Allen said. He counts among his finds musket balls, gold bars and a large emerald that he believes is part of the treasure of the famous wreck of the Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas. Allen opened a maritime museum in Freeport, Bahamas, in conjunction with the government.

For Allen, an experienced scuba diver, diving in a submarine feels like camping chic. “You don’t need oxygen tanks anymore to see all the stuff down there,” he said. “You have a cocktail, choose your music, go down a few hundred meters and have fun.”

Not everyone feels that way about the experience. For some submarine newbies, claustrophobia is a big problem.

Passenger compartments on most models are tight by anyone’s definition. Allen said he recently had an F-16 pilot aboard his submarine who compared it to the cockpit of a fighter jet. And there’s no bathroom, which means travelers should think twice about that cocktail.

But it’s not just claustrophobia. The particular way light refracts through seawater and the 10cm thick acrylic bubble that separates passengers from the water can induce a fear of falling off the boat. “We’ve had some issues with panic attacks,” admitted Hasselman, “but we can usually tell if something is going on before we actually start.”

The curvature of the window also distorts objects underwater, so they appear smaller and closer than they actually are. For example, the Stella Maris, a 300-foot freighter intentionally sunk in Curacao, looked like a bathtub toy to me as the submarine circled it.

But to be hundreds, or even thousands, of meters deep in the ocean is to feel engulfed by something impossibly large and incessantly challenging. There can be a strange peace in that. After the outside world turns black, the pilot often asks if passengers would like to turn off the submarine’s lights and stand still for a moment in the dark, at the bottom of the sea.

Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves