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Raising the Kursk
imrdkl writes: "Theres a conglomeration of Euro companies, from Euro countries renowned for their sea-prowess, who are working together with the Russians to raise their stricken sub. This will be some happy news, when they get it finished. Hopefully before winter gets bad up there in the "circle". A pretty good article, with a nifty flash animation which gives some notion of the scope of this engineering feat is to be found at USA Today."
Little link I found with some good info on the Kursk: http://www.subexpo.com/oscar/
Remember that this is basically farther north than Norway and East Of Lapland. Even with the last traces of the Gulf Stream up there, I expect snow and ice to appear soon.
I was up there in that sea once on a navy ship. The terrain is barren for a reason!
I wish them luck!
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Would the sailors who died on board under the sea really want to be raised? It has always been my understanding that, traditionally, this would be considered their final "grave" and, in a somewhat romantic way, this would be where a sailor who died with his ship would want to remain.
At the risk of being considered chauvenistic, there is a sense of pride for me as a Dutchman, that this job is being done by the Dutch. As a kid I would often get photobooks from the public library which had the work of these companies in there.
The things these companies have towed, lifted, salvaged and transported is amazing. If you want to have a look at some of their projects, go to the Mammoet projects site and go to the salvage website of Smit International
You should also have a look at Mammoet's new building. It is made from metal, looks like a 43 meter high bollard and is built indoors, up to the cabling, the sockets etc. etc. Then it needs to be transported whole over water for about 30km and lifted to its location.
The Van Seumeren family, that owns and runs the company is pretty down to earth and unconventional. When a journalist asked the Director Jan van Seumeren Sr. what he would do when they had lifted the Kursk, he replied: "Ooh man, that is going to be some party, we are going to be drunk for a week." (BTW the family also owns a small bar, that they bought when they thought too many yuppies came in.)
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Time Europe ran a feature on the raising of Kursk a week ago.
The story linked describes nicely the sideshow journalists find themselves in, when dealing with Russian officials. Lies, name-calling seem to be part of the norm when they have set dates for the recovery.
says official: "The information you're getting unofficially isn't the truth. The only information one must trust is what we say officially."
This is nicely followed up by an interview with Vice Admiral Yevgeny Chernov who believes Moscow is covering up the cause of the accident.
"Had it been done, we would have known what happened to the Kursk. Now, there are three versions. A floating mine, which is nonsense. A collision with a submarine, but there were no other submarines there. Or a collision with a surface ship. Had they shown that there were no surface ships in the area, this version could have been ruled out for good. But their failure to have done so makes doubts linger."
Nb: the story 'Accidents can happen' requires a password, but if you access it here it works.
-Kraft
Live and let live
Apparently, Russian torpedos are powered by hydrogen peroxide, which reacts with metal to produce a gas (expanding several hundred times), so when the fuel line burst, the peroxide reacted to the metal casing of the torpedo, and caused it to eventually explode, starting a fire which couldn't be controlled, causing the rest of the armaments to explode. (A British submarine was sunk due to a similar incident sometime around WWII, which is why we don't use peroxide torpedos)
Andrew.
For more on supercaviation see www.sciam.com, for their popular article "Warp Speed under Water". Essentially supercaviation involves enveloping an object in a mantle of gas which reduces the friction around the object so much higher speeds are attainable than otherwise. Estimates of speeds of hundreds of km/hr underwater have been made. A not too dissimilar approach was used in the sixties for airplanes, a plane's wing was drilled with thousands of almost microscopic holes so the air at speed would pass through the wing thus reducing the chaotic flow conditions at the leading edge. Also small elements have been used, experimentally, on wings so that chaotic flow is reduced.