The tentative plan was to wait for the sea to become flat calm, then winch the Pheia up to a depth of about 150 feet, then have the divers swim out. That would take two days. Now the Pheia was nearer to the surface, the pressure changes were more significant as the hab rose out of the depths. The last thing anyone wanted now was for the team on the Pheia to get bent, but it was hard to be patient. If the gas lines between the cylinders ruptured there would be no option but to try to get the divers out and have them swim up, but Williams knew that wasn’t really an option. They could send down more tanks of gas but they would suffer from the cold way before they had gas issues.
Williams heard something and turned to see Subramanian, Babin and Leclerc coming towards him. Subramanian handed him a cup of coffee and asked how he was doing.
“I’m fine. I’m worried about them.” He pointed down over the railing at the sea.
“You do not look fine.” Subramanian said. “Have you slept?”
“Yes, of course.” Williams lied. He’d had little sleep for the past few days and none the night before. He could tell it was affecting him and it was no surprise that others could see it too. He just needed to tough it out for two more days and he could sleep for a week.
Babin moved in a little closer. “I don’t want to alarm anyone but we do still have another problem that we need to work.”
“What’s that?” Williams asked, sounding dejected.
“As Leclerc and I understand it, the Pheia is hanging from a loop of winch cable which is over some sort of pinnacle on the wall.”
“Yes, I know that.” Williams said. “What’s the problem? Will that stop us winching them up?”
“Not exactly. As the winch cable comes up, it will probably pull the loop off the pinnacle. We might need the divers out there to watch. The issue that we are concerned about might occur after tension is applied, because of the weight of the Pheia. Morrison has clamped the cable into a loop and those clamps will cause a couple of crimp points on the cable. We can probably haul it up like that but if there has been any abrasion of the cable by the clamps it might not handle the strain.”
Williams stared out at the horizon. It was a beautiful day. “So what do you suggest?” he asked.
“We need to get the Pheia neutrally buoyant. Then Morrison can pull off the clamps and inspect the cable.”
“And if it’s damaged?”
“We think he can re-clamp the loop so that the damaged parts are in the loop itself. We sent extra clamps with him for exactly that situation.”
“I don’t understand. What’s the difference from the loop they have in the cable now?”
“I need to draw you a picture really but the problem is that Morrison has clamped the cable so that the cable makes a sharp turn as it comes out of the clamp. We want to create a loop so that the cable goes smoothly into the loop and then out of it with the two clamps on two sections of cable parallel to each other.”
“And to do that, you need the Pheia floating?” Williams asked.
Babin nodded to Leclerc.
“We have another option.” Leclerc said. “We cut the cable from the winch above the damaged area and clamp it back together with the cable that is attached to the top of the Pheia.”
“Can they do that?” Williams asked.
Babin answered. “Yes, they have a cutter but not enough clamps. So we want Morrison to remove one clamp from the loop they have now and use that to join the cables after they have cut it. Then we take up the slack until the loop is free. Then they take off the other clamp and use it to back up the first one.”
Williams looked hard at Babin and Leclerc. They were engineers. They had probably argued this out over a whiteboard and a calculator. “And this is safe?” he asked.
“Not really,” Babin responded. “But we see no other choice. We want to ask Morrison about it since he has seen the situation down there and may have other insight. We also need to discuss the method we think they can use to stabilize the position of the crew cylinder.”
Williams agreed. “Let’s go and ask him then.”
When Williams’ voice came over the speaker in the console, Kate was laughing at Washington for his awful knowledge of rock music. She had found his answers to some of the questions hilarious. Washington was definitely more of a country fan.
Morrison got up off the floor and pushed the talk button. “Morison here. Over.”
Williams explained that Babin wanted to talk to him about the winch cable.
“OK. Put her on. Over.”
Babin explained the plan to Morrison. The others stopped their game and listened.
When Babin had finished, there was silence.
Morrison pushed the mike button. “You have got to be out of your mind. Over.”
The sound of Babin laughing came over the speaker. “Sorry.” She said. “Leclerc just won a bet we had. We do have another idea but I doubt you’ll like it any better. Over.”
“Let’s hear it. Over.”
The others had stood up and were with Morrison at the console.
“They are crazy if they think one of those clamps will hold this thing up.” Stephens said.
Babin came back over the speaker. “We think we might be able to slide another set of clamps and some cable down the wire to you. You could use that to clamp the uphaul to the Pheia before you cut the damaged part out. Over.”
“That’s more like it” Stephens said.
“We like that better. Over.” Morrison said.
“Is that going to work?” Kate asked. “Will it actually slide all the way down here?”
“I don’t know,” Morrison answered. “But it’s real easy to find out.”
He pressed the talk button again. “Can you send down another lift bag too? Over.”
There was a delay. Morrison could almost hear them discussing it.
“Yes. But we think we’d like to try to send down the wire and clamps first. Then follow that with the lift bag with some weights inside it.”
“Why would they expect any of that to work?” Kate asked. “Surely it will just get hung up on the wire.”
“I guess we’ll wait and see.” Morrison suggested. “I like that better than relying on one clamp.”
Babin’s voice came back again. “We also want to send down another wire rig to stabilize the crew cylinder. We are concerned that it not move as we try to pull the Pheia back up. Over.”
Morrison pushed the talk button. “OK. How will that work? Over.”
“We want to tie the tops of the two cylinders together to prevent any further separation there, then attach lines from the weight stack on the crew cylinder to the weight stack on the ops cylinder, one on each side. That will stop it swaying and prevent it from rotating further up. Lastly, we want to rearrange the lift cables on the top of both cylinders to even out the lift forces. Over.”
Morrison raised his eyebrows and looked at the others. “And you are going to send all this down to us?” he asked.
“Yes. We are assembling the cables and clamps now,” Babin replied.
On the surface, Babin and Leclerc organized the equipment. They took several lengths of cable and made up the sets of cables and clamps needed for each attachment. When they were all assembled they made a short loop of cable around the main lift wire and attached all the others to it.
Once Leclerc had done up the last clamp he took a large cable tie and attached the wrench to the main loop of wire then dropped the whole assembly it into the water. The wire made a splash as it hit the surface and disappeared immediately.
“I wish we could be sure it’s going to go all the way,” Babin said looking down into the water. “Let’s get the bag ready.”