SUBMARINE FIRM HAS ITS UPS, DOWNS : PARTNERS WORK 1,200 FEET UNDER SURFACE OF SEA.

Byline: Kermit Pattison Daily News Staff Writer

Rich Slater runs silent and deep in a yellow submarine.

The Oxnard man and his small company have plied waters across the globe in a miniature yellow submarine named the Delta. They have hunted for treasure, mapped earthquake faults and explored shipwrecks like the Lusitania and Edmund Fitzgerald.

``Every job is different,'' Slater said as he relaxed barefoot in the cluttered office in his waterfront home in Oxnard. ``To go somewhere and find something no one has ever seen before is really exciting.''

With nearly 4,000 dives to its credit, the 15-foot bright-yellow submarine can plunge 1,200 feet. With a pilot sitting upright and a person lying in the forward window, the crew of two peers out though 19 windows and operates an array of external lights, mechanical arms and cameras.

Slater and his partner, Doug Privitt, teamed up in 1983 to form Delta Oceanographics. Slater runs the business end from his home in Oxnard while Privitt keeps the submarine in his shop in Torrance. Slater's son, David, and son-in-law, Chris Ijames, serve as pilots.

Privitt began building submarines in 1959 and finished the Delta early in the 1980s. With only a high school education and a few college courses, he learned much through his own research - a fact that prompts his partner to label Privitt a genius.

``I do a lot of different things,'' said Privitt, 65. ``You have to wear a lot of different hats. You have to know how to run computers, make your own drawings, write computer programs to run mills and lathes.''

In the 1980s, the submarine was used mainly in offshore oil operations. But when the oil industry faltered in the 1980s, the Delta partners turned most of their attention to scientific research for universities and government agencies, such as studying underwater earthquake faults or marine life. In one such assignment, the sub went up to Alaska after the Exxon Valdez oil spill to investigate damage to marine life.

``We made 180 dives the month after the spill,'' said Slater, 59. ``The funny thing was we didn't find any oil. We proved oil floats.''

Three years ago, the sub joined marine researcher Robert Ballard to film the wreck of the Lusitania, the British ocean liner torpedoed by a German submarine in 1915, an attack that aroused international outrage and helped push the United States into World War I.

The Delta also dove on the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1994. The ship sank in 1975 in Lake Superior and was later memorialized in a popular Gordon Lightfoot song.

``Shipwrecks are spooky underwater,'' said Slater. ``It's like being in a dark alley at night.''

The Delta also occasionally joins searches for lost treasure. Usually shipwreck hunters lure the sub with a promise of a percentage of any profits, but so far the sub has never found treasure.

``I have more percents of zero than anybody I know,'' Slater said.

The Delta has never had a serious mishap, although the sub once snagged on a fishing net on the Lusitania wreck. The pilot just released the tail and rose to the surface. With a replacement tail on the sub, the crew went back and retrieved the other tail.

But Slater still has the scars to prove that freak accidents can occur. In 1970, he was in another two-person submarine helping to recover a sunken racing boat. After being brought to the surface, the racing boat slipped off a ship, sank and hit the submarine.

``We never knew what hit us,'' said Slater. ``We woke up at the bottom, and the sub was full of water.''

The other man died in the accident, but Slater swam more than 200 feet to the surface and was found floating unconscious. The miraculous ascent earned him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the deepest underwater escape without equipment.

``It's kind of a tough way to get in it,'' said Slater. ``I don't think anybody is going to break it for a while.''

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1--color) Douglas Privitt of Torrance touches aminiature submarine that he built. He and Rich Slater of Oxnard are partners.

(2) A two-man crew fits inside the Delta, a 15-foot submarine that has made 4,000 dives on assignment.

(3--ran in CONEJO only) A submarine built by a Southlander surfaces near Redondo Beach.

Jeremy Greene/Special to the Daily News