Sea Power: Submarine rescue - Who's going to rescue the submarine rescuers? | ADM Apr 2009
Julian Kerr Sydney
This, and a number of other disclosures elicited at a Senate committee additional budget estimates hearing on 25 February, will have done little to enhance the recruitment drive underway to boost the manpower of a submarine force capable at present of manning only three of the Royal Australian Navy's (RAN's) six Collins class submarines.
What also emerged from the hearing was a major question mark over the future of the Australian submarine rescue vessel Remora, at present languishing in storage at Henderson in Western Australia awaiting safety recertification from the classification society Det Norske Veritas (DNV).
The 16.5 tonne Remora sank in 140 metres of water about 40 km north of Rottnest Island in December 2006 when one of the two cables connecting it to the mother ship snapped during preparations for Exercise Black Carillon, a RAN submarine rescue exercise conducted in the Western Australian Exercise Area.
Two crew remained trapped in the Remora for 12 hours before it was lifted to 15 metres below the surface by the secondary cable, which broke in heavy seas after both men had been assisted from the vehicle.
Remora then spent four months on the seabed before being recovered by the US Navy's Supervisor of Salvage and Diving, the same USN unit that recovered an ADF Blackhawk helicopter that crashed off Fiji in November 2006.
The Remora was returned to Vancouver for restoration by its Canadian manufacturer, Oceanworks International (previously CAN-DIVE Marine Services) and returned to Australia in August 2008.
A Defence spokesperson told ADM on 20 February that Remora had been restored and certified for operation to January 2018 and was awaiting commencement of deep water Sea Acceptance Tests to conclude DNV recertification.
However, responding to further questions two days after the Senate standing committee hearing on 25 February, Defence acknowledged that DNV required modifications to the launch and recovery system (LARS) "to reduce impact loads on the structure, to meet Class Society rules.
DMO is currently working with the OEM examining proposals to achieve DNV certification."
Outside help
Rear Admiral Boyd Robinson, head of the maritime systems division in the DMO, told the committee the LR5 deep sea vehicle had been contracted (apparently outside the tender process) to be on 12-hour notice for embarkation from Glasgow to Australia.
He said the LR5, utilised by the Royal Navy (RN) until recently when the RN moved to the NATO submarine rescue system which it shares with France and Norway, was available to the RAN as a first priority.
The LR5 could have been pre-located in Australia, but this would have cost "several million dollars more."
Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Russ Crane, said a desktop exercise in January had shown the LR5 system on site, over a submarine, within 80 hours.
"That 80 hours was within the time frame that we needed in order to be able to safely evacuate our people from the submarine," he said.
RADM Robinson added that additional life support stores had been issued to the submarines - "I think we provide stores for up to a week.
"That is not ideal, obviously.
"In some cases, even with this equipment fully operational, we would expect to have to wait that long to get equipment in place, because our submarines operate in various locations."
RADM Robinson told the committee he would know by the middle of the year whether the RAN would continue to use the Remora system "or pursue a different course."
A Remora replacement could cost as much as $50 million and take two years to build and commission, meaning the best course of action was still to pursue fixing the lifting arrangement and having it recertified.
He explained that the stress on the A-frame that lowers the Remora from a mother ship was up to six times greater than the deadweight of the Remora itself and the RAN was seeking certification for up to sea state 5, an ambitiously high target.
"The lifting gear has a series of heave compensation devices, hydraulic mechanisms attached to them.
"The ones on the LARS are not as substantial as they could be.
"The issue we are going to now is: can we make modifications to that and have it recertified, or do we have to build a larger frame?"
The Remora is capable of operating at depths of more than 500 metres in a current of three knots, and of mating to a sunken submarine lying at angles of up to 60 degrees.
The LR5 has a similar maximum operating depth but can transport 15 survivors at a time compared to the Remora's six.
However, as VADM Crane pointed out to the committee, the maximum operating depth of the rescue vehicles is nevertheless much shallower than the areas in which the RAN's submarines operate.
"Where we really need to pay attention is when we are up conducting initial licensing trials on our submarines, when we deliberately do that in shallow water with escort vessels and finely-honed safety arrangements so that if there is an accident we are able to deal with it quickly and effectively," he commented.
The committee also probed why 92 RAN submariners are undertaking pressurised escape training at a Canadian navy base in Halifax, Novia Scotia, rather than at the $24 million, purpose-built Submarine Escape Training Facility (SETF) at HMAS Stirling.
This involves learning how to make a free ascent from a stricken submarine at depths of up to 180 metres.
The escape training is mandatory for all new submariners and all qualified submariners must take a refresher course every three years.
Communication breakdown
The reason for the Canadian training, it emerged, was breakdown in contractual negotiations between the DMO and ASC, the preferred tenderer to manage the SETF, which had resulted in the pressurised escape component of the SETF being closed since the middle of last year.
The DMO's five-year SETF and submarine rescue management contract with Caldive expired in June 2008 and ASC, the previous incumbent, was named preferred tenderer.
However, following the delays in recertifying the Remora, the DMO decided to separate the submarine rescue service from the SETF contract but, according to RADM Robinson, "the preferred tenderer did not adjust the price in the way that we thought he should have."
Norway and Canada were both prepared to provide pressurised escape training, the DMO did not want to be backed into a corner and pay what RADM Robinson termed "an exorbitant price," and the tender was cancelled in December.
A new open tender for the SETF was being issued in early March with a one month turnaround but this would only involve the water workers who conducted the training.
DMO was managing maintenance of the SETF to keep it in certification and initially would continue to do so, rather than pay a contractor to subcontract this to someone else, RADM Robinson said.
ASC declined to comment on the dispute and referred all questions to the DMO.
However, sources familiar with both sides of the issue referred to continually changing contractual requirements on the part of the Commonwealth well before the decision was taken firstly to split the SETF portion of the contract from the rescue element, and subsequently to terminate contractual negotiations.
A Defence spokesperson pointed out that the SETF remained operationally available for non-pressurised training using uniformed instructors, and was expected to resume "all facets of training" by the mid to third quarter of this year.
The previously contracted staff who conducted pressurised training had returned to industry within their respective specialisations.
"No matter what you may be told by the water workers we are not going to let them in that tank without making sure they qualify and retrain," RADM Robinson told the committee.
According to Defence, the RAN is meeting its policy requirements for a submarine rescue service and for submarine escape training with the current arrangements.
"The submarine workforce has been briefed in detail on the current escape and rescue situation.
"Morale within the submarine workforce remains strong.
"Defence remains committed to restoring all aspects of submarine escape training capability at Fleet Base West and to bringing the Australian submarine rescue system back into full service safety."
A different assessment was offered by Senator David Johnston in the course of the committee hearing.
"We cannot use the SETF because of a contractual dispute and a tender stuff-up, to put it bluntly.
"We have got no Remora because it cannot be lifted and we have got priority over a machine in Great Britain for which we have to wait 80 hours or more.
"This is not good."