Kent Lind <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Carol:
>There was an article about this some years ago in the now defunct AquaCorps
>magazine.  I have the copy at home and could scan it if someone wanted to
>run it through OCR.  Apparently the British have these sub escape suits.
>The Americans rely on rescue from rescue subs.
.... snip of the very very scary stuff - explaining usage of survival suit.

The Brits have escape suits, the Yanks rely on rescue subs ... guess what
the Russians would have? Probably nothing :-( Due to lack of resources,
delayed wages & other woes which have plagued the poorly financed military
the Russian navy is a shadow of its former self. Due to lack of funds to
buy fuel most of the navy's ships have only gone on short training runs
near their bases. Ive heard about 70% of the ships need repair. So buckleys
there would be survival suits on board .. let alone one for every bubble
head.

Some escape hatches are located in the forward torpedo room and who knows
what damage has occurred in that area on the Kursk if that is where the
original explosion was. I saw some footage where the rescuers were trying
to dock a capsule called Bester but couldnt due to the angle the sub is
tilted on & the worsening weather. Let's hope it is not too late for the
Brits rescue vessel which I hear is more manourable & able to dock at weird
angles. Even if the Bester had been able to dock it can only hold 15 people
at a time & bringing it to the surface could take up to seven hours to
prevent DCI.

With strong waves & currents tearing off the anchors of the rescue vessels
imagine how hard it is going to be trying to refloat the sub. A major task
with it weighing around 20,000 tonne... but the potential of a
contamination hazard in those fishing grounds means something will have to
be done as elements in the Kursk's fuel waste would be radioactive for
years.
Viv