Colin Clarke – Inshore ops with the Marines

And then the other bit I used to like, when we did the ‘Inshore Op’ phase of Perisher, we were working with the Royal Marines, the SBS for example, so we’d be practicing clandestine operations at a beach head or something, so we’d have a bunch of Royal Marines onboard with maybe canoes or sometimes rigid inflatable boats as well, and they would have to go through a nice procedure in the dark of surfacing and breaking the boats out and releasing the Marines to go off and do their dastardly deed, you know, whatever that was.

The submarine would dive again, and then a bit later on, we’d come back in close, do some kind of recovery drill, and be that fully surfaced or snag.

So, if it was a couple of canoes for example, they would put a piece of rope between the two canoes, and then the submarine would stick a mast up and come between the two, snag them and drag them back out to sea.

Then you can surface ‘cos you’re out the way of prying eyes and the threat shoreside and pick them up. Those things didn’t always go well, trust me.