NORTHRIDGE : Brothers Make Waves With Sub They Designed

Most people would be concerned if they were in a submarine that filled with water.

Not Bill and Bob Nicoloff. They designed their craft, the Pelagic Cruiser, that way.

The Northridge brothers don wet suits, scuba gear and bicycle shoes with cleats before cruising in their non-pressurized sub, which they have entered in two races against other human-powered subs since completing the craft in 1992.

The Nicoloffs placed second in March at the West Coast Submarine Invitational, a Guinness World Records challenge held in Escondido. They posted a speed of 5.5 knots, or about 6 m.p.h., in the race.

The Nicoloffs were pitted against teams from university engineering departments as well as employees from Boeing, Lockheed and other giants of U.S. industry. The Nicoloffs, by contrast, designed and built their sub in their parents’ garage.

The craft, about 11 feet long, travels underwater at depths from 5 to 15 feet, and the Nicoloffs can stay in it for as long as their tanks will supply air.

Bill Nicoloff, 31, saw human-powered submarine races on TV in 1991, wanted to compete and decided to build a sub. A 1992 graduate of Cal State Northridge, Bill was studying production operations management, not engineering. He now works for a company called Rotoflow in Gardena, which makes turbines for gas refineries.

“The sub is strictly a hobby,” he says.

The brothers are avid scuba divers. Bob, 29, a medical student at USC, ran regularly and competed in triathlons, so Bill had no difficulty talking his brother into the idea of pedaling the sub. After a month of research in the engineering library at UCLA and drawings on Bob’s personal computer, the Nicoloffs made models and dragged them through their swimming pool at their parents’ house.

Using their poolside observations and extensive calculations, they began the fabrication process. Bill and Bob took turns lying on the grass in scuba equipment and bending steel rods around each other. Bill was in the steering position and Bob pedaled. The rods were welded together and used to form the fiberglass hull. Bill describes the shapes in engineering terminology of “skin drag” and “laminar flow,” then simply says, “It looks a lot like a fish.”

Bob says that the submarine idea was a natural progression from a childhood of working with Bill on projects from rockets to go-carts and cars. The Pelagic Cruiser cost about $4,000 and took about 800 hours to build. Other teams, which often have corporate sponsors, can spend about $30,000 building their crafts.

“It looked like a lot of fun,” Bob says. “We had no idea the amount of time it would take. It wasn’t like dealing with a large group of people. Some other teams had a lot of difficulty producing a sub. The flow of it was very easy. It was just the two of us and Bill always had sort of veto power over me.”

Though the Nicoloffs are not sponsored, they plan to compete in the next human-powered submarine races in Florida in June. In 1993, they came in third in a field of over 40 subs at the Florida races.

Bob says he is quite competitive. “I’ll find a way to be there,” he says.