It is more like dropping a looooong, thin, right-side-up sealed onna bottom glass tube into a tall bathtub/deep lake.
My Mark 1 Mod 1 hit water at about 12 feet (the top of the dipper pipe was about even with the top of the well pipe. The hole (there will be a coupla more) is about 9 feet from the closed bottom of the sipper pipe.
It might be easier to mentally picture how deep a 16' sealed PVC pipe three inches across would go if it were held vertically to displace its weight of water (not laying horizontally like a floating log).
The displacement of water in the vertical position allows the pipe to sink to the point where the hole(s) drilled with a 1" spreader begin to fill up the empty bottom.
The new mod will have a total of four holes, staggered in a short spiral. <-- That will have zerio effect on the strength of the pipe, but allow 4X the speed of fill once it gets to the water layer.
Even my peacocks stayed under the shelter of my front porch all day today... so you can betcha that I din' get out there to complete the latest mod.
Oh. One last thing: Had it come about that the pipe did not quite reach far enough down to allow the fill to begin before it floated in equilibrium, I have a ten-foot bamboo walking stick I could have used to push it down to trigger depth.
