![]() ![]() During the estimated US$70 million salvage operation Russia is preparing to deploy a flotilla of its Northern Fleet to the area to discourage prying Western eyes. Once it has been raised, the Kursk will be towed to Murmansk where four Russian-built pontoons will lift the Giant 4-Kursk combination and sail it into a dry dock. Computers will control the entire lifting process. The force on each bundle of cables can be set individually to minimize the tension on the Kursk’s hull and the impact of the swell of the sea can be reduced by “heave compensators” so that the force exerted on the attachment points on the Kursk is constant. When the weather permits, the submarine will be raised centimeter by centimeter to just below the pontoon. Each of these attachment points will be tested at about twice the necessary force before the submarine is raised. The plugs have arms that unfold under the beams and the inner skin to provide a firm anchorage. Lifting cables, each made up of a bundle of 54 thinner steel “strands,” will be lowered from the Giant 4’s strand jacks and anchored in the holes in the Kursk using large steel plugs. The lift is expected to start on September 15. A section has been cut out of the 140-metre-long (460 feet) Giant to make room for the Kursk’s conning tower. Stage two will use a special pontoon - Smit International’s Giant 4 - which has been fitted in Rotterdam with 26 “strand jacks,” each of which can lift up to 900 tonnes (886 tons). The Kursk’s bow - which contains the torpedo room - will be cut free using a giant, hydraulically-operated cutting chain and dumped on the seabed so that the rest of the vessel can later be lifted as a compact load. The holes will be cut using high-pressure water jets which blast abrasives at the steel hull. The Russian Navy, together with the submarine’s designer, Rubin, will determine the exact location of the holes based on the design of the submarine’s interior. Last year, divers spent 730 hours under water trying to recover the victims - this year they will spend about 1,500 hours on the seabed working in temperatures of 0-6 degrees Celsius. During the first phase, scheduled to start on July 10, a 32-man team of divers will start to remove the seriously damaged bow of the Kursk and to drill holes in its hull. The Kursk project will be completed in two stages. The Dutch salvage groups Mammoet and Smit International have established a joint venture (Mammoet-Smit) to salvage the Kursk, which is lying in 108 metres (350 feet) of water with its nose buried in the largely clay seabed. ![]() The cause of the tragedy, which killed all 118 crewmembers, is still not known. More than twice the length of a jumbo jet, the 18,000-tonne (17,716-ton) submarine sank during wargames in the Barents Sea last August after a powerful explosion ripped open its nose. The team of 11 divers - five of them Russian and six Norwegians - have been training in Murmansk with special templates to cut holes in the inner and pressure hulls of the submarine to attach raising lines. A group of divers will shortly leave the Scottish port of Aberdeen on the vessel Mayo to begin the first phase of the salvage operation to recover the victims of the Kursk submarine disaster.
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