The solution reached was this. The pilot swings his ship down to within 100 or 150 feet of the water, lowers a hose with a small bronze scoop, not much wider than the hose, so as to lessen the drag.
Twenty-five feet up from the scoop is a streamlined cylinder, blimp shaped, carrying a small electric pump. This cylinder, nicknamed the "fish", has tail fins to keep it from spinning, and skims along the surface or jumps out like a porpoise, but the scoop is far enough behind and heavy enough to trail easily beneath the surface, stays directly in the ship's wake, continues without interruption to pick up ballast for the airship above.
The whole gear weighs slightly more than 100 pounds, can pick up water at cruising speed, can function in rough water or smooth. The Navy J-4, chiefly used in these experiments, normally consumes 500 pounds of fuel in five hours of flying at cruising speed. It was able to pick up that much water ballast in seven minutes.
The next step was to enable an airship to obtain fuel from a tanker or other ship without physical contact or advance arrangements--even from a passing merchantman. The pilot asks by radio or voice whether the surface ship can spare some gasoline, and on an affirmative answer, lowers or drops on his deck two rubberized fabric spheres connected to each other by 14 feet of rope--also a note of instructions. The smaller sphere is an ordinary air-filled buoy, the larger, about three feet in diameter when filled, is the fuel bag. The surface ship fills the fuel bag, then drops both bags overboard, being careful only that they do not get tangled up. Then the airship flies over the two bags, drops a hook between them, hauls away, pumps the gasoline into its tanks.
The third device permits an airship to anchor in the open sea near a surface ship to transfer crews or take on fuel and supplies. The anchor is a cone-shaped rubberized fabric bag, ten feet long, with a diameter of 2-1/2 feet at the top. It is lowered 50 feet below the airship by two cables connected with each other by rungs to form a ladder. Half of the cables' length is made up of heavy exerciser cord to dampen the effect of wave movements. On top the cone is a wire mesh cover which allows the water to pass through, and is strong enough to act as a platform, supporting a man.