The second round of tests began at the end of July and were necessary due to the death of 20 crew members during the first round of tests in which there was a gas explosion. Repairs alone cost US$60 million.

The submarine will be docked at Amur for sometime while fresh water and food are replenished. Following this, the submarine will depart to continue sea trials.

It is expected that the ‘Nerpa’ and its permanent crew will depart Russia in mid-September for India for the crew to start training at sea. Official delivery will take place before the end of the year (source: www.bairdmaritime.com).

He said it might be held consecutively with the world junior boat race, the Formula Future, which Malaysia had bid to host next year.

Malaysia first held the F1 Powerboat Championship in 2001 in Tanjung Puteri, Johor followed by at The Mines Resort in Seri Kembangan near here in 2002 and 2003 and the last one at Putrajaya Lake Club in Precinct 8 Putrajaya in 2004.

H2O was informed by F1 Powerboat Championship promoter Idea Marketing S.A of Italy that it had won the bid to host the race last month, Yahya told Bernama.

He said H2O had also been given the nod to hold both races at the Maritime Centre in Precinct 6, Putrajaya by Putrajaya Corporation president Tan Sri Samsudin Osman.

“The Maritime Centre in Precinct 6 is more suitable than other precincts in Putrajaya as the lake is bigger,” he said. On Malaysia’s bid to hold the Formula Future in Putrajaya, he said the result would be known in December.

On the interest shown by Melaka and Terengganu to host F1 Powerboat Championship, he said if they were serious about it, the race could be held there alternately with Precinct 6 Putrajaya.

Although Malaysia had never played host to the Formula Future, national contenders won the championship four times — in 2004 (Lisbon, Portugal), 2005 (Lisbon), 2007 (Leer, Germany) and 2008 (Ravenna, Italy). Malaysia did not defend their titles at the Pushkin Formula Future in St Petersburg, Russia from Aug 17 to 19 due to the H1N1 scare (source: themalaysianinsider.com)

Russian attack submarines such as this one have been spotted in the Atlantic Ocean.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said their presence is not causing alarms to go off.

“So long as they are operating in international waters, as, frankly, we do around the world, and are behaving in a responsible way, they are certainly free to do so, and it doesn’t cause any alarm within this building,” he said.

It has been years since Russia operated near the U.S. seaboard, thousands of miles from home ports.

“What’s interesting is, they haven’t been able to do this in some time, and now they are. It indicates a return to their ability to do this,” the senior defense official said.

He viewed the patrol as an example of Russia showing the United States and the world its expeditionary forces, part of a continuing trend. He said the Russians have recently been a partner in anti-piracy operations around the world. And last year the Russian Navy conducted a “tour around the world,” pulling into ports throughout Latin America.

In December, a Russian spokesman said that tour demonstrated “Russia’s ability to fly its naval flag and ensure protection of its national interests in the world theater.”

The Akula-class nuclear-powered submarines, which are normally equipped with surface-loaded cruise missiles and surface-to-air missiles, have stayed in international waters, the source said. These are not the class of submarines that can launch intercontinental nuclear missiles.

The U.S. Navy has the capability to locate, identify and track submarine activity through satellites, ships, aircraft and classified systems.

“NORAD and U.S. Northern Command are aware of Russian submarine activity off the East Coast operating in international waters. We have been monitoring them during transit and recognize the right of all nations to exercise freedom of navigation in international waters according to international law,” said Lt. Desmond James of the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

A Russian military spokesman said at a news conference in Moscow that the submarines’ activities were “part of the normal process.”

Defense officials told The New York Times that one of the Russian submarines was in international waters Tuesday about 200 miles off the coast of the United States. The location of the second was unclear.

U.S. officials downplayed the significance of the submarines operating off the U.S. coast.

“There is no need to overreact,” the senior defense official said.

“This is not an issue of concern. It is all consistent with the internationally-recognized principle of freedom of navigation. As long as the vessels do not cross into territorial waters, they are free to navigate any open waters,” another official said.

Officials have said this is the naval equivalent to Russian bomber missions close to U.S. and other countries’ borders.

“It is Russia again trying to assert its influence and trying to show they have a relevant military,” a third defense official said (source: cnn.com).

Manmohan Singh, center, honors a war victory in New Delhi on Sunday, the same day he launched a sub.

“Today, we join a select group of five nations who possess the capability to build a nuclear-powered submarine,” Singh declared in his speech at the eastern naval base of Visakhapatnam.

Although he billed the submarine as an outcome of a public-private partnership, the Indian leader did mention Russia in his address.

“I would also like to express our appreciation to our Russian friends for their consistent and invaluable cooperation, which symbolizes the close strategic partnership that we enjoy with Russia,” Singh remarked.

Nonetheless, he called for leveraging the strengths of India’s private industry for defense goals.

Singh, however, insisted the submarine launch reflected no aggressive plans by his country.

“We do not have any aggressive designs, nor do we seek to threaten anyone. We seek an external environment in our region and beyond that is conducive to our peaceful development and the protection of our value systems,” Singh said.

The launch came 11 years after internationally condemned tit-for-tat nuclear tests — first by India and then by Pakistan — in May 1998 (source: cnn.com).

Either way, Morris Architects has proposed exactly that:

There are approximately 4,000 oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico varying in size, depth and mobility that will be decommissioned within the next century. If a deck on one of these rigs is about 20,000 square feet, then there is potentially 80 million square feet of programmable space just off the coast of the United States. The current method for rig removal is explosion, which costs millions of dollars and destroys massive amounts of aquatic life. What if these rigs were recommissioned as exclusive resort islands? Could the Gulf be America’s “Dubai” and the rig the artificial island on which to build it? This project examines the possibilities of creating a self-sufficient, eco-friendly high-end resort experience in our own backyard – the Gulf of Mexico.According to Curbed LA, the hotel rooms themselves “are pre-fabricated, designed to be transported out to the rig as a standard cargo container.”

Once there, a new world of luxury interiors unfolds above the continental shelf – apparently an ideal environment in which groups of semi-nude women can watch James Bond films.

Of course, if the real Dubai is any model for what might actually happen with such a resort, then we’ll probably see dozens of oil rigs partially converted to luxury hotels only then to be abandoned by their construction crews and investors.

As the lands of southern Louisiana continue to disappear into the Gulf, heavily armed refugees on fishing boats will move out to sea, recolonizing the derelict structures. There will be campfires at night, burning driftwood, and specialty gardens.

Within four or five decades of inconsistent contact, the Library of Congress sends out a new, 21st century Alan Lomax to visit those thriving offshore subcultures and record their folk songs and oral histories.

He discovers a sort of new Kalevala, written by dwellers of empty structures at sea, somewhere between creation myth and national folk history. The Kalevala of Abandoned Oil Rigs.

Alas, it turns out to be a latter day Ossian – that is, he just makes the whole thing up.

Or, of course, the economy will recover, this plan will work, and within a decade you’ll be suntanning on a platform in the Gulf of Mexico, reading Self (source: http://bldgblog.blogspot.com).

www.MaritimeJobSearch.com | Shipping, Transportation, and Engineering Jobs

The new Global Perspective Subsea Market Update is being launched at Subsea 09 in Aberdeen on Feb.11-12 and at PennWell’s Subsea Tieback Forum & Exhibition in San Antonio March 3-5 (source: www.offshore-mag.com).

Both vessels, HMS Vanguard and Le Triomphant, were armed with nuclear warheads and suffered damage but were able to return to port under their own power following the collision.

“Two “SNLE” (nuclear submarines), one French and the other British, were, a few days ago, on standard patrols in the Atlantic. They briefly came in contact in a very slow speed while they were immersed,” the French Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

“There is no casualty or injury among the crew. Neither the nuclear deterrent mission nor the nuclear security have been compromised.”

In an earlier press release issued on February 6, the Ministry of Defense said the vessel’s sonar dome had been damaged in a collision. The vessel was able to return to its base at Ile Longue in Brittany, northwest France, accompanied by a frigate.

The UK’s Ministry of Defence also confirmed the incident. In a statement, the First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Jonathan Band said the collision occurred during “routine national patrols.”

“Both submarines remained safe and no injuries occurred. We can confirm that the capability remained unaffected and there has been no compromise to nuclear safety,” Band said.

HMS Vanguard returned to its home base at Faslane in Scotland on February 14. The UK’s Sun newspaper reported that dents and scrapes were visible on the vessel’s hull as it was towed into dock by a tugboat.

Both the UK and French nuclear deterrent operations depend on complete secrecy, despite both countries’ membership of NATO. But naval analyst Richard Cobbold told CNN that procedures would be in place to ensure that French and British submarines were routinely kept apart.

“Either one of these submarines was doing something different or somebody made a mistake — but we don’t know that,” Cobbold said.

Both submarines were equipped with state-of-the-art sonar technology, but Cobbold said it was possible that neither was aware of the close proximity of the other vessel.

“Modern submarines are very, very quiet. In many types of water conditions they might not hear the approach of another submarine,” he said.

But with both nations keeping at least one nuclear-armed submarine constantly at sea for the past 40 years, he said it was no surprise that they had eventually ended up in the same area of ocean.

“Even in an ocean the size of the North Atlantic the submarines are eventually going to be in the same patch of water at the same time,” he said.

In a statement issued Monday, the UK-based Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament described the incident as “a nuclear nightmare of the highest order.”

“The collision of two submarines, both with nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons onboard could have released vast amounts of radiation and scattered scores of nuclear warheads across the seabed,” said CND chair Kate Hudson.

“The dents reportedly visible on the British sub show the boats were no more than a couple of seconds away from total catastrophe.”

Hudson said the incident was the most serious involving a nuclear submarine since the sinking of the Russian Kursk in 2000 with the loss of the vessel’s entire 118-man crew.

HMS Vanguard, which was launched in 1992, is one of four submarines which make up the UK’s nuclear deterrent. Its firepower includes 16 Trident II D5 missiles capable of delivering multiple warheads to targets up to a range of 4,000 nautical miles.

The 150-meter vessel carries a crew of 141 and is powered by a uranium-fueled pressurized water reactor. Vanguard Class submarines routinely spend weeks at a time underwater on patrol in the North Atlantic.

But contact with naval commanders and government officials, including the defense secretary and the prime minister, is maintained at all times by a “comprehensive network of communications installations,” the Royal Navy Web site said.

Le Triomphant was launched in 1994 and entered service in 1997 with a crew of 111, according to the GlobalSecurity.org Web site. Its weapons include 16 M45 missiles capable of launching multiple nuclear warheads.

The UK has maintained a nuclear arsenal since 1956, with at least one nuclear-armed submarine somewhere at sea continuously since 1969.

In 2006 the government approved plans to develop a new generation of nuclear weapon-carrying submarines which is due to be ready to replace the Vanguard Class by 2024. But the program, which is expected to cost around £20 billion ($29 billion), has been heavily criticized by anti-nuclear campaigners (source: cnn.com).

According to the experts, the corvettes are “electronically undetectable at more than 8 miles in rough seas and at more than 13.5 miles in calm seas”. Their creation was an answer to the incursion of foreign submarines in Swedish waters in the mid-eighties.

The corvettes are designed to travel at more than 35 knots in between the many beautiful islands that populate Sweden’s shallow coast, thanks to waterjets-made by Rolls-Royce subsidiary Kamewa-that reduce their draft. Their mission will be to quickly patrol their territorial waters while hunting for enemy submarines and other ships.

While I prefer to travel the Swedish coast on a sailing ship, I wouldn’t mind getting a quick surf on these things when they enter in service at the end of this year (as they are probably staffed with non-stealth blonde valkyries – source: http://i.gizmodo.com).