At first glance, Hawkes Ocean Technologies’ (HOT) bayfront workshop in Point Richmond, California, is an unassuming, if not confusing, mess: fluorescent light bounces off exposed ducting; a dusty concrete floor is barely visible beneath mechanical detritus, miscellanea and strange tarpaulin-covered bulks on trailers. Allie, an appropriately hybrid pooch (and company mascot), dozes at the feet of a few jumpsuited workers. In the midst of it all, HOT founder Graham Hawkes pauses to take stock: “This is an underwater Frankenstein lab with no constraints.”

To some – notably the venerable Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution – the 63-year-old Englishman represents the “lunatic fringe”. To others, he’s the Wright brothers, Jules Verne and Jacques Cousteau in one. Inventor, designer and engineer of more than half the world’s manned submersibles, Hawkes could have become rich long ago if he had stuck to industry and scientific conventions rather than going it alone in 1984, to chase the dream of “flying under water”.

His epiphany came when he encountered a crab while testing his Deep Rover (a one-man bubble-shaped contraption eventually used to stunning effect by James Cameron’s 3D IMAX film, Aliens of the Deep). Hawkes looked at the crab, then at the manipulator claws on his submersible and it hit him; for all his cutting-edge developments, his manoeuvrability was no better than that of a crustacean.“We were both scurrying around, neither actually able to get up and move in three dimensions,” he recalls.

The propulsory function of traditional submersibles is akin to that of a balloon – while travelling vertically through water columns is straightforward, elegant horizontal action is severely limited. Hawkes vowed that he’d create something different; he wanted to fly through the water. Moreover, he wanted to create cheap, mass-producible submersibles, that were easy to maintain and operate without specialist crews.“We’ve gone to the moon, we’ve mastered airspace, we have bicycles, trains, scooters, cars – and yet the biggest space on this planet we’ve basically had no access to,” he says. “And the access we do have, in terms of manned crafts, is crude and simple”

If anyone can rip up the submersible rulebook and start again, it is surely Hawkes. In addition the “60 or 70” manned submersibles to his name, his achievements include pioneering diving suits (the WASP) and more than 300 remotely operate vehicles (ROVs) for research and industry. When entrepreneur and headline-grabbing adrenaline junkie Steve Fossett (best known for his solo non-stop balloon trip around the world) wanted to dive down to the Mariana Trench, the ocean’s deepest point at around 11,000m, Hawkes was the only person in contention to build his vessel. (Although the project mothballed with Fossett’s untimely death, the nearly completed Deep Flight Challenger, points to tantalising possibilities in the future).

Hawkes has also cultivated an impressive adventurer’s CV that includes the world’s deepest solo dive (914m, using the Deep Rover), the identification of over 350 wrecks (including what many believe is the famous ‘Lost Squadron’, five Grumman Avengers that disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle in December 1945), and a cameo as a submarine-driving villain in the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only (piloting a vehicle known as the MANTIS). Dan Brown even wrote him into his novel, Deception Point, as a “genius sub designer” whose plans are stolen for nefarious ends.

After four generations of prototyping with no public funding, Hawkes finally hit on the Super Falcon – described as an underwater fighter plane and an aquatic Ferrari – in 2008. Using downward lift on the wings to descend to depths of up to 300m, the Super Falcon leaves conventional submarines spluttering it its slipstream by reaching speeds of between six and eight knots. Two passengers sit in pods covered by acrylic domes that give the appearance of “disappearing” once beneath the water and provide 360° views (LED lights make it possible for the passengers to see in murky depths, even while minimising the impact on aquatic life unaccustomed to unnatural light). Powered by lithium polymer batteries, the vessel has very low environmental impact, and features integrated tracking devices and a safety system that will float it to the surface should it come to a halt. There is 24 hours of oxygen on board.

The Super Falcon was Hawkes’s gift to himself and his wife Karen, who handles HOT’s marketing, as a reward for years of hard graft. “We poured all our funds into it,” he explains. “It gave me an opportunity to think ‘what do I want’, and by then I’d got it fixed in my head that the part of the ocean that would be best to explore is the twilight zone, where the big animals are.”

Hawkes had almost finished the inaugural vessel when Tom Perkins – of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers – tracked down his workshop via Google. The venture capitalist was on the hunt for a small submersible that could complement Maltese Falcon, then the world’s largest privately owned superyacht.

Hawkes showed him several designs but says that 25 minutes after seeing the Super Falcon, Perkins asked: “Graham can you have contracts in my office tomorrow by 10am?” A few months later the world’s first Super Falcon was delivered at a cost of $1.2m. That feat in itself, says Hawkes, was nothing short of revolutionary.

“If you go to experts and say ‘we put a manned submersible on somebody’s private yacht that they pilot and it is maintained by their crew’, 10 out of 10 would say ‘no, that can’t be right’,” he marvels. “With technology, when it doesn’t move smoothly, when it makes a non leap people are put out of joint, their expertise is out of whack.”

Hawkes completed a Super Falcon for his personal use last year, and opened it up to the public via “VIP” flight schools geared at engaging everyone from businesspeople to poets. No other Super Falcons have been built since but Hawkes is confident that prices and sales will eventually tally with those of light aircraft.

“The Super Falcon is absolutely amazing,” gushes Perkins, who has racked up more than 100 underwater flight hours.“It’s intrinsically safe, fast, fun, and easy to handle. You can learn to operate the thing in 30 minutes. You can explore big areas, chase things, play with things – it’s a completely different experience.”

Perkins isn’t the only deep-pocketed admirer of Hawkes’s labour of love; earlier this year Sir Richard Branson commissioned an open cockpit submersible – costing around €515,000 – that guests of his Necker Island resort could hire and explore to depths of 120m.

Hawkes has since joined the engineers working on Branson’s nascent underwater exploration business Virgin Oceanic, a sister company of the embryonic space tourism purveyors Virgin Galactic.

“Graham Hawkes is a pioneering engineer, designer and inventor, the [aerospace engineer genius] Burt Rutan of the underwater world but he needs people to fund and commercialise his work, and patrons to make it all happen and we hope to fulfil that role,” Branson told CNBC Business.

“There are some people who believe the problems of global warming could be resolved by knowing more about the oceans. There are thousands of species we don’t even know exist in the ocean. The problems that BP has experienced show how we just don’t have enough vehicles to go down and fix issues at the bottom of the oceans,” Branson continues. “There’s lot of reasons why we need more money invested in this area, and there has been almost none to date.“

Branson says that Virgin Oceanic’s “ultimate ambition is to be able to map the oceans in the same way Sir Francis Drake and Christopher Columbus mapped the land”.

Keen to capitalise on the surge in receptivity for his work, Hawkes recently formed two new businesses – Hawkes Remotes for the ROV market, and Hawkes Ocean Sports to produce affordable Necker Nymph-esque subrmersibles for recreation and tourism purposes.

The former is particularly apposite in light of BP’s Deepwater Horizon fiasco in the Gulf of Mexico.“I used to be in the ROV business,” says Hawkes. “I wouldn’t go back if I didn’t think we’d have something able to dominate certain areas. We’ve got something pretty dramatic.”

The original HOT will remain as a malleable entity to undertake specialist filming, marine archaeology and design projects – Super Falcons and beyond.

Hawkes has his exit strategy all mapped out. “I hope these companies do well and get taken over,” he smiles.“If our dreams become widely successful in the next 10 years, you won’t see me – I’ll be somewhere with my wife and kids flying around in the oceans.”