These "submarines" are just that....... submersible ships, while not registered nor can the dive very deep they are still considered submirsible vessels so they fall into the "submarine" catagory. From what I understand is the "crew" gets paid a HUGE amount of money to bring the drugs into the US and if they get caught they are supposed to sink the vessel prior to capture and hope that they get released from where ever they got caught from eventually.
Side note: early US Navy Submarines were labeled Submersible Ships and NOT submarines. Now with that being said, wouldn't today's submarines be listed as NS's instead of SSN's
Now for another side note there WAS a ship labled as NS and that was the NS Savannah (NS Nuclear Ship) was a NUKULEAR Cargo vessel that was a thorn in Rickovers side along with the Nuclear Propulsion board or so I have heard. The NS Savannah is currently resting in the harbor in Baltimore, Md awaiting a home. It was here in Newport News, Va for many years in the James River Reserve Fleet (JRRF) and I had the honor to walk her decks 5 or so years ago on a mini strip ship. Even though her reactor had been removed many moons ago you could still smell the atmosphere of a nuclear ship (for those that did not ride SSN's there was a unique smell due to the O2 generation equipment and other odds and ends associated with it)
Would I ride one of those things??? heck no, would I build a submersible?? HMMMMmmmmmm maybe if'n I had the money because the Navy won't let me buy a WWII boat that still can submerge and come back up on it's own without a LOT of help.. Not sayin that Paul's beloved USS Cod couldn't do that (probably could) because she still has ALL of her hatches intact which very few musuem boats can brag about.
Darrin
