Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, December 27, 1993 TAG: 9312270024
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Of course, the 1959 stainless steel tanker that slid off the state park boat ramp into the lake's frigid, choppy waters Sunday was no ordinary dairy machine. It looked more like a time machine, or maybe one of those things you'd see pop out of the ocean in a James Bond movie.
"It's amazing. It's a beautiful thing," said Dave Hollyer, who stood with about 100 others in the cold and wind to watch the launching of what may be the first craft to travel the globe by both land and water.
The Dobbertin Surface Orbiter - 5 1/2 tons of welded steel carrying 292 gallons of diesel fuel - splashed into the lake shortly after 11 a.m., making its third official stop since it started its journey Dec. 19 from the New York state fairgrounds in Syracuse.
Karen and Rick Dobbertin - who converted the duck-billed dairy tanker into an amphibious anomaly - hope to cross 40,000 miles of land and sea during the next year. If they succeed, they'll be the first to travel around the world in a single vehicle.
And that's the entire point.
"We just wanted to do something that nobody's ever done before," said Rick Dobbertin, 41, of Cazenovia, N.Y.
Whether they complete their journey or not, the Dobbertins have probably reached that goal already. No doubt they were the first to drive a shiny, silver submarine-on-wheels to services at Patmos United Methodist Church in Huddleston, where they prayed before Sunday morning's maiden dunking.
The Dobbertins included Huddleston on their itinerary because Karen's parents, Ellie and Karl Lerz, live in nearby Mountain View Shores. They arrived in time for Christmas, after stopping in Wilkes Barre, Pa., and in Leesburg, where they installed a compact disc player in the tanker.
"You gotta have music," said Karen Dobbertin, 35, who christened the CD player with a blast of Mozart.
The couple hopes to make it to Daytona Beach by tonight, then on to the Caribbean, where they will island-hop for a while on their way to South America. Next, it's up the West Coast of the United States, then through Canada to Alaska. After that, they'll travel to Asia, Australia, India, Europe, Iceland and Greenland before returning to Canada.
Rick Dobbertin estimates it will take about a year to complete the trip, provided no rubberneckers crash into them.
"It's hard to drive down the road," he said. "People swerve when they try to look at us."
Dobbertin, who builds cars for a living, is no stranger to people gawking at his mean machines. He is a household name to readers of Hot Rod magazine, which twice bestowed honors upon his souped-up creations. The magazine named a 1965 Chevrolet Nova he built as its 1982 Street Machine of the Year. In 1985, it hailed his Pontiac J-2000 Hot Rod of the Year. Revell Inc. later turned the dragster into a toy.
The orbiter - dubbed Perseverance - might be hot, but it is not going to win any awards for speed. Rick Dobbertin said it travels about 60 miles per hour on land, where it functions like a four-wheel-drive truck, and about four miles per hour when propelled through water.
The vehicle, which looks like a cross between a submarine and the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, took Dobbertin more than 10,000 hours and $175,000 to build. Most of the parts, however, were donated by companies such as General Motors, which came through with a 6.5-liter turbo-charged diesel engine.
Other sponsors, such as Miller Beer, are painted onto the side of the orbiter. To finance the trip, the Dobbertins are selling decals at $15 each that read, "I circled the earth in the Dobbertin Surface Orbiter." The Dobbertins will mail them to purchasers once they complete their trip.
Karen's mother, Ellie, was doing a brisk business selling the decals, patches and photos of the orbiter to the crowd of onlookers at Smith Mountain Lake, but would not release sales figures. She was also fielding questions from curiosity seekers who seemed surprised to see her pop out of the top of the orbiter when it rolled up to the boat ramp.
"I got in," she told the people staring up at her. "I don't know how I'm going to get out. But I got in."
The Dobbertins were not letting anybody else share that privilege. They invited people to stare through the windows of the vehicle's nose - where you could get a view of gray leather captain's chairs, numerous gauges and a cellular telephone - but no more.
Inside, said Ellie Lerz, the quarters were rather cramped. Eight feet high and 32 feet long, the orbiter contains a kitchenette with sink, refrigerator and microwave oven, a portable restroom, tight sleeping quarters above the fuel tanks, a citizen's band radio and the CD player.
The couple will sleep in the orbiter only when necessary, said Karen Dobbertin. They have already had invitations from people along the route to stay in their homes and even to use their washing machines, since they have room for no more than a few duffel bags of clothing.
An interior decorator by profession, she said she is not excited about the prospect of spending all of her time stuffed inside a silver sausage.
"It's not the most comfortable," she said.
But she is convinced that it is safe. So is mom, who climbed back in for the first official aquatic leg of the voyage. The orbiter spent about an hour circling the cove at the end of the boat ramp, then drove back up the ramp and headed toward Florida.
Karen Dobbertin said she is more concerned about the horse she is leaving behind with friends than she is about herself. Saying goodbye to her 33-year-old Thoroughbred Galway Bay has been the toughest obstacle so far.
"It was traumatic," she said.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***