Underwater salvage keeps firm afloat

WHAT LIES BENEATH: Subsalve USA President Richard G. Fryburg in the company's North Kingstown facility, where workers are assembling flotation devices for undersea salvage operations. The bag being tested in the back can lift 77,000 lbs. / PBN PHOTO/MARK S. MURPHY
WHAT LIES BENEATH: Subsalve USA President Richard G. Fryburg in the company's North Kingstown facility, where workers are assembling flotation devices for undersea salvage operations. The bag being tested in the back can lift 77,000 lbs. / PBN PHOTO/MARK S. MURPHY

(Updated, Sept. 13, 2:30 p.m.)
Some of the orders coming in at Subsalve USA Corp. in North Kingstown could be mission briefings in an adventure film. For example:
• James Cameron, on a quest to reach the deepest point in the ocean, needs stabilizing floats to launch his submarine.
• NASA is looking to recover the solid rocket boosters discarded by the space shuttle from the bottom of the Atlantic.
• The Thai Royal Navy wants to safely remove underwater mines and unexploded ordinance from its waters.
• Treasure hunters hoping to recover an estimated $3 billion in platinum bars from the SS Port Nicholson, a British freighter sunk by a U-boat off the coast of Cape Cod in World War II, want to float the valuables to the surface.
So it wasn’t surprising when producers of the television show CSI Miami, cooking up a plot involving a criminal gang, underwater gold and a tsunami, called Subsalve for advice on how to make the caper seem real.
“We are asked to participate in many projects,” said Subsalve founder and CEO Richard Fryburg, a day after returning from Bangkok on the Thai Navy job, “and only some of that is the glamour stuff.”
In fact, much of what goes into undersea recovery and has gone into building Subsalve hasn’t been as glamorous.
Fryburg, a Worcester, Mass., native whose family vacationed on the Rhode Island shore, started diving at an early age and soon began offering diving services to marina and yacht clubs.
In the mid 1970s, Fryburg ventured into underwater-recovery projects and the first was an attempt to raise the sunken tugboat Mount Hope in Narragansett Bay.
It didn’t work.
So Fryburg moved to flexible flotation devices – inflatable bags he made from government-surplus materials – which would become Subsalve’s core technology.
In 1977, he started the company in the basement of a Providence factory and, over three decades, has grown the business and the applications for underwater lift bags into industries that include: commercial salvage; scientific exploration; recreational diving; energy transmission; public infrastructure; military engineering and entertainment.
Subsalve now has 30 different products and sees the potential to grow significantly if it can scale up operations. Subsalve flotation bags range in size and the buoyancy they provide from 25 pounds to 100,000 pounds and can be made in a wide variety of shapes.
In the construction of undersea pipelines transmitting oil, gas or water, Subsalve bags are placed beneath the pipeline while it is assembled. Then the bags are deflated and the pipeline makes a controlled decent to the ocean floor. Subsalve bags have been used in this way to build an oil pipeline in the Caspian Sea and a water pipeline in Mexico.
In mine and bomb disposal, Subsalve has developed a system in which flotation bags are attached to a dangerous explosive device and then inflated remotely by an operator at a safe distance. Once on the surface, the explosives can be transported and destroyed.
In addition to Thailand, Subsalve has worked on mine disposal with Singapore, New Zealand and the Unites States, among others, Fryburg said.
Also for the U.S. Navy, Subsalve provides large flotation bags used to help lift submarines into dry dock.
On the experimental side, Subsalve is working with a Canadian company called Hydrostor that hopes to store energy in compressed air kept underwater in large bags.
While Subsalve has found success broadening into new markets, Fryburg said finding financing to grow his company has been a major challenge
“We currently have over a two-year backlog of business, of which 70 percent is foreign business,” Fryburg said. “The company could be much larger if we had more local support.”
Fryburg said he had asked the R.I. Economic Development Corporation for help, but was turned down because the company could not promise to create enough high-paying jobs.
(Subsalve did in fact receive a $250,000 loan through the federally funded, EDC-administered Small Business Loan Fund in 2010; however, state officials deny that Fryburg made any formal or informal inquiries about the Rhode Island Job Creation Guaranty Program.)
Subsalve is currently leasing a 20,000-square-foot office and factory space in the West Davisville section of North Kingstown, but Fryburg said the company could use a larger facility.
The Small Business Administration has helped secure financing, but Fryburg said Subsalve could grow to $20 million in sales with a staff of 30 or 40 full-time employees if it had the capital to expand.
“Is Rhode Island the place to do that? Probably not,” Fryburg said. “But I live here and like quality of life.” •COMPANY PROFILE
Subsalve USA Corp.
OWNER: Richard Fryburg
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Designer and manufacturer of underwater lift bags
LOCATION: 338 Compass Circle, North Kingstown
EMPLOYEES: 18
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1977
ANNUAL SALES: $3.7 million

(Updated with comment from the EDC.)

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