Artist's conception.
1980 – SMIT SUB-1000 ROV
Interview excerpts of Chris Nicholson – Deep Sea Systems International Founder
••I was always trying to expand my skills and progress further in the industry. It got to the point where I found myself not having time for school. I ended up going over to Europe in 1977 to work with Smit International, and at the age of 21 I was building a $3.5 Million ROV. I thought the trade off was worth it.
••The ROV we built in Europe for Smit, the Smit Sub 1000, was a Work Class ROV that was the first ever underwater ROV to have fiber optics, which was supplied by AT&T. The ROV also had a color camera with various other sensors and was a pretty revolutionary vehicle. After that I decided to go back to the US and get a job building ROV’s for Benthos. It was real similar work, except the vehicles we were building were much smaller.
See other early Underwater Robots here.