Photographs by by Misha Gravenor

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / Hawkes at Hawkes Ocean Technologies, Point Richmond, California; right, the Super Falcon PHOTOGRAPHS BY BY MISHA GRAVENOR //////////////////////////// / /////////////////////////// LIKE MANY INVENTORS, GRAHAM HAWKES /RIDES THE LINE BETWEEN REVO- LUTIONARY AND CASH-STRAPPED DREAMER. BUT IF HIS NEW“FLYING” SUBMERSIBLE WORKS, HE MAY BE THE FIRST MAN TO GO 36,000 FEET BELOW THE OCEAN’S SURFACE ALONE. THAT’S DEEP. BY THAYER WALKER /////////////////////////////// THERE IS A STORY THAT ENGINEER GRAHAM round-rimmed spectacles. The ocean is the ///////////////////// “core of all life, and for some reason this deep HAWKES TELLS TO EXPLAIN WHY HE BEGAN space is the last we set about tackling.” BUILDING STRANGE WINGED SUBMARINES, AND To illustrate his vision of the future—and the vehicle that will take us there—Hawkes is IT TAKES PLACE, QUITE NATURALLY, IN A CLOUD rolling out the DeepFlight Super Falcon, OF MUCK ON THE SEAFLOOR. a machine he claims will “put marine science back on track.” On temporary exhibit down- In 1984, Hawkes engineered a submarine bottom of the harbor and the top of his pro- stairs, the sleek silver craft is fast, light, and called Deep Rover I. The one-person sub was fession, “I’ve been doing this all wrong.” relatively cheap—and looks as if it zoomed cutting-edge technology, and Hawkes, then out of an Isaac Asimov novel. 37, had already established himself as a A HUGE GULF SEPARATES the act of identi- Hawkes has built more than 60 subs since prominent ocean engineer. Deep Rover I’s fying a problem and actually solving it. The graduating in 1969 from London’s Borough giant, five-and-a-half-inch-thick acrylic verdict on Hawkes—a transformative vision- Polytechnic Institute, and standing at the dome provided its pilot with a galaxy of per- ary or simply a bombastic engineer?—is still podium, he takes the audience on a brief spective—nearly 360 degrees of horizontal pending. historical tour of his inventions. His first view—and its manipulator claws were robust Hawkeswearstheobscurecrownofworld’s winged submarine, the single-passenger enough to carry hundreds of pounds of rock most famous submariner. He co-holds the DeepFlight I, launched in 1995 with a maxi- yet delicate enough to cradle an egg. The sub record for the deepest solo dive in the world mum depth of 4,000 feet. In 2002, he built a looked like a giant fishbowl mounted in a (3,000 feet), played a submarine-driving two-person version, DeepFlight Aviator, skeleton of metal and had a maximum depth henchman in the 1981 James Bond film For to reach 1,500 feet, and in 2005 he began of 3,280 feet. To this day, Hawkes calls the Your Eyes Only, and made an appearance in DeepFlight Challenger, designed to take Fos- Deep Rover series “the most advanced con- the Dan Brown novel Deception Point as a sett to the ocean’s bottom. He sold his first ventional submarines” he has ever engi- “genius sub designer” whose plans were Super Falcon, a $1.5 million, 4,300-pound neered, though he lingers over the term stolen by a maniacal engineer. He’s since craft that can dive to 1,000 feet, to venture “conventional” with unguarded disdain. become the guy the world’s most prominent capitalist Tom Perkins in 2007,then promptly Deep Rover I was tested in Halifax, Nova businessmen and explorers call when they finished the one he was building for himself. Scotia, for a Canadian company called Can- want a submarine. Compared with the staggering depth Chal- Dive, and the sub made headlines in the quiet James Cameron used a Deep Rover model lenger was designed to withstand, 1,000 feet fishing port. For its public unveiling, a stage to film the 2005 Imax documentary Aliens of is shallow, but Hawkes insists that the Super was erected on the harbor, and a band played the Deep. Before Steve Fossett died in a 2007 Falcon is the more advanced machine. Chal- for local dignitaries. Flashing a streak of plane crash, Hawkes was building the lenger was built to dive deep and come back showmanship, Hawkes rose from the harbor multi-millionaire retired trader the first up; the Super Falcon was built to explore, and in Deep Rover I wearing a tuxedo. one-person submersible intended to dive to because it’s so light,it doesn’t demand an ex- But Hawkes, a charming Brit with a sharp the ocean’s deepest point, 36,201 feet, in the pensive, crew-intensive ship for transport. avian nose befitting his last name, had al- Mariana Trench. This February, he an- Hawkes takes exception to conventional ready put the sub through sea trials and nounced his newest star client, Richard scientific submarines—in particular Alvin, come away with an unsettling conclusion. Branson, who is launching Virgin Oceanic, whichisoperatedbytheWoodsHoleOceano- His vessel, like the scientific submarines that dominate deep-sea exploration to this day, took its propulsion cues from hot-air “I HAVE BUILT 60 SUBMERSIBLES THAT STOP AND balloons: It traveled vertically through the HOVER!”HAWKES CRIES ONE AFTERNOON AT HIS water column with ease—but moved along the horizontal plane with the haste of an ant WORKSHOP, REFERRING TO THE MACHINES HE crawling through Jell-O. DESIGNED BEFORE HIS WINGED SUBS.“I DON’T During one test, Hawkes had his epiph- any. After sinking 50 feet through Halifax ////////////////////////////////HAVE TO PROVE THAT TO ANYONE!” //////////////////////////////// Harbor, he met a plucky crab standing it////////////////////////////////s //////////////////////////////// ground. The crustacean waved its pincers aggressively. Hawkes looked at his subma- an ocean-tourism venture, with one of graphic Institution, responsible for some of rine’s giant manipulator claws, then back at Hawkes’s machines, and is also interested in the world’s most important scientific discov- the crab.“At that moment,” he recalls,“I re- taking up where Fossett left off. eries, and is one of just five submarines in the alized that Deep Rover was just a big crab. Now 62, Hawkes has spent the past year world that can dive below 14,000 feet. We were both scurrying around on the sur- trying to get the rest of the world to embrace Stripped down,these craft are simply spheri- face of the planet, and neither of us were ac- his vision of ocean exploration, a campaign cal titanium pressure hulls with portholes for tually able to get up and move in three /that began in earnest on a cool San Francisco windows, a design that/hasn’t evolved much dimensions.” evening this past spring, when Hawkes pre- since Alvin became the world’s first deep- That revelation has dominated his life for sented his case to a packed lecture hall at the diving sub, in 1964. more than a quarter century and is one that, California Academy of Sciences. “Alvin has a wonderful track record,” he hopes, will shake the very foundations of “We largely think Earth is explored, and Hawkes says,“but if I told you that I built one marine science, change the way the world we have the vehicles we need to master this machine 40 years ago but there is still only manages the oceans,and help steer humanity planet, [but] that’s only our terrestrial third,” one—that is an abject failure. It’s fat, dumb, off a dangerous and misguided course. Hawkes said, scanning the crowd of business and too expensive.” Alvin has a two-year “My God,” he said to himself, sitting at the moguls, scientists, and enthusiasts through scheduling process and costs $42,000 per 90 Outside they don’t collect samples. “I don’t agree with Hawkes’s philosophy at all,” says Phil Nuytten, CEO of the North Vancouver, B.C.–based undersea-technology firm Nuytco Research and a longtime friend and rival of Hawkes.“Stopping and hovering is 85 percent of what a submarine does. Gra- ham’s flying subs are wonderful but not for a full-scale research sub.” Nuytten has designed his own flying research sub, which is neutrally buoyant and can stop and hover. “Over the years, Graham has advanced the technology of these small transportable submarines more than anyone,” says oceanogra- pher Sylvia Earle, Hawkes’s ex-wife and former business partner. But Earle concedes: “As a scientist, I need to stop and look and work. The best experiences I have had have been sitting in one place.” Hawkes heard this criticism when he launched DeepFlight I, in 1995, and he still turns a shade of crimson when he hears it today.“Ihavebuilt60submersiblesthatstop andhover!”hecriesoneafternoonatHawkes Ocean Technologies, his Point Richmond, The Super Falcon California, workshop, referring to the machines he designed before his winged subs.“I don’t have to prove that to anybody!” What he has proved is that he can build a submarine that’s lighter than most and therefore has the potential to dramatically cut the cost of marine science and exploration. HOT’s office windows reflect million-dollar yachts moored a stone’s throw away in San Francisco Bay,though inside,the scene is more grit than glamour. Hawkes’s global headquarters is a single room of bare concrete walls cluttered with motherboards, and getting from one side to the other re- quires tap-dancing around four submarines. There’snolobbyorreceptionist,andthecof- fee brews by the dog food for Allie, the com- day, an expense largely consumed by the DeepFlight I live under a dust jacket in his pany’s mutt mascot. 274-foot mother ship needed to transport its workshop? Why are Hawkes and his client Rather than subject himself to the red tape 36,000 pounds.

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