World’s First Deep-Diving Transparent Sub Is So Zissou It Hurts

The Triton 6600 can spend 4.5 days more than a mile underwater

By The Editors
February 22, 2016 9:00 am

Cousteau. Nemo. Zissou.

You.

A new deep-diving submersible might not take you all the way 20,000 leagues, but it will go to 6,600 feet — something no other personal sub on the market can claim.

The Triton 6600 features a transparent acrylic hull that is the “thickest ever made” and “optically perfect,” according to the Florida-based manufacturer. Dubbed the “world’s deepest diving sub” to have a clear hull, the 13-foot-long boat is controlled via a PLC touchscreen and comes equipped with six standard 20,000-lumen LED lights.

It also packs enough air to support a pilot and passenger for up to 12 hours (with an additional 96 hours of air in reserve in case of emergency).

Triton — which previously competed with Richard Branson and James Cameron in a contest to explore the 36,000-foot-deep Mariana Trench — operates with the philosophy that a “truly memorable, visually captivating and immersive underwater experience is only possible in a submersible equipped with a transparent pressure hull.”

The 17,640-pound machine maxes out at 3.5 MPH, so it will take a while to make your descent, but a trip to Davy Jones’s Locker will be worth the wait.

“I’m not a scientist or an engineer, just a high school graduate who became a hard-hat diver,” says Triton’s Patrick Lahey. “But more people have been to the moon than have been to the bottom of our own ocean. That doesn’t make any goddamn sense.”

The $5.5 million submarine isn’t cheap, but it may pay for itself in sunken treasure.

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