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.
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