Chris Groves – After SETT closed – SMERAS is more realistic
We stopped Training but we kept the Staff qualified to do it so that we could do some very high quality Training Videos of it that would last the length of the time and then we worked out how we were going to bring in a new facility which is now based up in Faslane, called SMERAS, the Submarine Escape Rescue and Abandonment System, and we made the training more realistic.
We now have much colder water, we have sea state, we have wind, we have rain, we have environment, we have all of the experiential elements of Training that you need to have in an Escape or an Abandonment scenario, but without putting people under hyperbaric pressure, and so you still go up into the Submarine Escape Tower, you still have the suit on, you still have preparing the space for escape, you have the plugging in your suit into the air system and it all sounds as it would do.
The water comes up as it would do but rather than you then coming under pressure, you simulate the opening of the tower and you then get the individual to come out of the tower and find some self on the surface that you put him into the pool of water as though he’d got to the surface as though he was at the top of the tower as it used to be in the Escape Training Tank. And then you go through the process of what you need to do on the surface without experiencing the going from the submarine to the surface. And whilst that used to be a thrilling ride, the risk was not worth the gain. The reality of it was that you were in very warm water.
It was light, it was in a controlled environment, you were attached to a wire and so once you had gone through the … and the pressurisation rate in the Training Tank was much less than the pressurisation rate would be if you were doing it for real, and so you went up through the Tower and you ended up on the surface having been able to see everything out of your visor and enjoy the ride as you went up to the surface, and it was good fun.