A British company, Submarine Manufacturing and Products (SMP), a manufacturer and supplier of diving and subsea rescue equipment, has been awarded a contract to provide its new submarine rescue system to the Indonesian Navy.
The rescue system will be hosted on a mothership designed by independent design and engineering consultancy Houlder and delivered by its Indonesian strategic partner, BTI Defence.
The three-year build contract will include the UK design and manufacture of the rescue system, which is based on SMP’s new SRV-F Mk3 rescue submersible. Construction of the mothership will take place in region, along with the associated expert training for the Indonesian Navy who will operate the system when it is in service.
The SRV-F Mk3 is a hybrid system capable of deployment by air and on the mothership. It SRV-F Mk3 can be used to react to a wide range of emergency scenarios, covering larger operating areas and minimising time-to-first rescue (TTFR) compared to earlier submarine rescue systems.
The SRV-F Mk3 can dive to depths of 500m and can carry up to 50 rescuees at a time. “The adoption of a ‘one out, all out’ philosophy facilitates the rapid rescue of an entire crew from a conventional submarine in a single mission, in contrast with other rescue systems which require repeated trips to the distressed submarine,” said SMP.
In addition to the SRV-F Mk3, the new mothership is fitted with a suite of support equipment, including a handling system, a transfer under pressure (TUP) system and a dedicated decompression chamber, enabling the immediate medical attention and treatment of rescued personnel.
