18 NAVY NEWS, JULY 2011
The unmistakable curvaceous lines of a Russian submarine – in this case the Kilo-class boat Alrosa, making a rare appearance on the surface off Spain; it’s the first time a Russian boat has participated in the rescue exercise
The bottom T But for submariners three
HE meaning of life is 42. Three is the magic number.
other figures matter: seven, 72 and 1,006. Seven is the maximum
number of days you’ll survive if your boat is stuck on the bottom of the ocean. Seventy- two is the maximum number of hours you can expect NATO’s rescue submarine to reach you. And 1,006? That’s the number of ships in the world which can carry the impressive – and large – rescue system. Make that 1,005, for one of those is in use right now. Some 20 miles off the southeastern tip of Spain, the KL Sandefjord hovers in glassy waters. Some 200 metres away is the Spanish submarine Galena. She’s also 114 metres down and in need of help. Galena’s one of four boats ‘bottomed’ in the western Mediterranean, awaiting their saviours in the world’s largest submarine rescue exercise. Two thousand sailors from 13
nations converged on waters between Cartagena and Alicante for Bold Monarch, the NATO-led exercise held every three years to test the ability of the world’s submarining nations to help deeps in distress. Portugal, host nation Spain,
Turkey and, for the first time, Russia (prompting much excitement among organisers) provided diesel boats needing rescue.
Coming to their aid are mini- submarines, diving bells, divers, parachutists and medical experts from across the globe, among them NATO’s Faslane- based Submarine Rescue System. The team running the latter
– the RN oversees it, but it’s actually run by Rolls-Royce – keep tabs on the 1,006 vessels which can accommodate the cumbersome kit: one mini submersible (Nemo), launching
MORE than 2,000 sailors from 13 nations took part in the largest rescue exercise ever staged as they tried to ‘save’ hundreds of submariners ‘trapped’ in four boats on the seabed of the Mediterranean. RICHARD HARGREAVES reports from NATO’s Exercise Bold Monarch.
system, plus a container ‘hospital’ complex and several workshops. Most of the suitable ships –
VOOs, or ‘vessels of opportunity’ – are oil rig support vessels, chiefly located in northern European waters, the Gulf, off Mexico, plus a handful in the Mediterranean. In this instance, the NATO
team have plumped for the Sandefjord, not a bad choice indeed: a brand-new Norwegian vessel with quite possibly the largest (and plushest – wooden flooring, coffee machine, sofa in the corner) bridge on the planet and a huge working deck for the entire NATO Submarine Rescue System. The rear of the Sandefjord’s
bridge provides a wonderful bird’s eye view of the system: at the stern a huge orange crane to launch the Thunderbird 5-esque rescue submarine Nemo. Behind that a two-deck container complex, the ‘transfer under pressure’ centre where stricken submariners can be treated for decompression illnesses. Further back still, a couple of
small white capsules – they look very much like the craft from the fledgling days of the Space Race – which can be used to carry submariners needing substantial medical attention to hospital in a pressurised environment. And all around the deck there
are more containers: generators and workshops. It’s taken two dozen lorries
and seven giant transport aircraft to shift the entire 350-tonne system from its home in Faslane to the back of the Sandefjord.
THE whole kit and caboodle is expected to be over the rescue site within 72 hours. It’s not the task of the system to find the sunken submarine, merely to rescue its trapped crew. The latter have at best seven
days, at worst five, before time runs out. All four boats in this exercise
are conventional diesel craft, sitting on the bottom of the Mediterranean at depths of 80- 120 metres; you don’t ‘bottom’ nuclear boats because (a) the shape of their hulls means they might roll and (b) the reactor needs constant cooling with sea water and you don’t want to clog the intakes up with all the gunk you might find on the seabed. (There are plans to tether Astute to four buoys under Loch Goil next year and carry out a rescue exercise to prove that you can escape from an A-boat should the need arise.) ‘Bottoming’ a boat isn’t
natural and certainly isn’t a lot of fun for the crews. The submarines spend up to two days at a time on the seabed during the exercise. “All you can really do is sit or
lie down – keep movement to a minimum to reduce oxygen use and CO2 production. It’s very, very tedious,” says Cdr Steve Drysdale, who’s just about to take over as the senior RN/ NATO submarine rescue staff officer. But there is a plus side if you’re
one of the several hundred souls on the bottom of the ocean for Bold Monarch. “You go through the training,
you talk about escape as a submariner, but to do this for
real, to prove that rescue works, to show the guys you can link up at 120 metres down, that’s a real boost.” Sitting some 114 metres down
today is the Galena, a Spanish boat, normally based just a few miles away in Cartagena. Communication with the ‘sunken’ boat comes courtesy of an underwater telephone – basically a loudspeaker pumping the words of Lt Cdr Stewart Little, the rescue commander, through the water. Depending on other noise (ie engines) in the area, the water should carry soundwaves a good 1,000 metres. You do have to speak in a deliberate, rather halting fashion and, after a few seconds, between the bursts of static, a distorted, yet audible response. “Sandefjord, Sandefjord, this is Galena…” This is how the two would communicate for real. It would be down to Lt Cdr Little to determine the rescue plan, taking advice from his medical experts, divers, and the boat. How many people are on
board? How many are injured? Where are they? What is the pressure? With the plan determined, it’s
time to send down the rescue submersible. Nemo has two pilots who
occupy the ‘command module’ – the bit at the front with the bulbous window and a blistering array of dials, switches, consoles, buttons. Behind that is the rescue chamber – the two parts can be sealed off with a hatch – where a diver is in charge of the link-up with the sunken submarine and
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