Weightless Wonder:
The SeaSpace Tidalab I
One of the exciting initiatives taking place at the Oyster Bay Historical Society is the “rehousing” or replacing older, worn archival boxes with new ones. This project requires a quick inventory check and an opportunity to look more carefully (and describe in greater detail) the items in the society’s collection. Looking through one particular group of files I found a picture of a vessel that could have been designed by James Bond’s colleague “Q.” This odd, floating laboratory was known as a SeaSpace Research vessel or Tidalab and it led me to the story of engineer, inventor and president of the Sea-Space Corporation, Robert D. Hawkins.
Just off the heels of the 1964-65 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, America was ready for the future. Hawkins was a man fit for the times. Educated, passionate, with the skills to build and the ingenuity to bring it all together.
In 1966, Hawkins wrote a report explaining the science behind his “air-cushioned stabilized sea platform” and how it could be a game-changing research facility: “Exploration and development of the ocean has called for a new breed of structures with which to occupy the surface of the sea. Structures on which man can live and work in comfort….Its unique form and construction offer economic advantages which assure a place in the growing family of special purpose vessels for exploration and development of the oceans.”
Just over 50 feet in diameter, this “research prototype” would use signals from hydrophones to gather data. The estimated annual operating costs neared $16,000, including one full-time captain taking the vessel out three times a week, 50 weeks a year on an average of 30 miles each trip. In a 1967 letter written to the curator of the Nassau County Museum of Natural History (an organization that later developed into the Nassau County Division of Museum Services), Hawkins wrote that the intended use of the “floating marine museum” was for the education of school groups on field trips. His feelings being that “a child finding a shell or crab could have his questions answered with authority and timeliness.”
In an interview given for Pen Computing in 2000, Hawkins’ son, an inventor in his own right, recalled memories of working on the unusual craft. “Part of my life was growing up in that old shipyard on the North Shore of Long Island called Jacobson [sic]. It’s closed down now, but it was one of the last shipyards in that part of the country. We built this big round boat there… The official name of the boat was Sea Space, but we sometimes called it the bubble monster.”
Eventually, the craft was sold to the Waterways Orchestra who would use the platform to perform concerts up and down the Long Island Sound and other locations around Manhattan. Hawkins would continue to develop and create floating and sailing vessels in America and abroad for decades to come. One man of science with an unsinkable imagination.
