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Senior ocean engineering major Luke Savoie works on the interior of a human powered submarine in May. The submarine, built by the Texas A&M Human Powered Submarine Team, took nearly a year to construct.

'Maroon Harpoon' places third in international competition

By: Jack Molitor

Posted: 7/16/07

Texas A&M's human-powered submarine team placed third overall in the 9th International Submarine Races on Thursday. Submarines in the races were human-powered. A&M's submarine, the "Maroon Harpoon," was piloted by a team of engineers and posted an absolute speed of 5.022 knots.

"It was a lot of fun and it was great seeing all the work that we've put into it these last couple of months come together the way it did," said Luke Savoie, a member of the submarine team. "We did well, but we were really trying to break the all-time Texas A&M record. We barely missed it but to do that well against that kind of competition is exciting."

A&M placed second in the one-person propeller submarine category and won honorable mention in the best overall performance category.

"We did a lot better than last year," Savoie said. "We're already looking forward to next year because we basically have the same team doing it again and we want to improve."

Michigan, Washington and the University of California at San Diego were among the colleges in the competition, which took place June 25-29 at the U.S. Navy's David Taylor Model Basin in Bethesda, Md. There were 22 teams in total from colleges, high schools and independent teams from the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.