Ron Gordon – Escape from a submarine in the real world

If you’re in a Loch in Scotland, if it’s been raining, you know it’s normally raining, you’ve got all the peat coming down the hills and that’s going into the water and that makes it nice and black, so when I was coming up, it didn’t get light until about 30 feet from the surface.

Simon: And that’s what probably a couple of seconds between 30 feet and …

Yeah, you come up at 10 feet a second, so it’s three seconds.

Simon: And how different was the escape from the submarine to doing it, apart from the darkness, how different was it?

Nerve-racking. Shitting myself (laughs) … oh sorry! Well, you think about it. You’re in a tin coffin, very narrow, it’s …

Simon: Was this a single person escape tube?

Yeah, so you’re in there and it’s pressurised, and the pressure is doubling every 4 seconds so you’re trying to concentrate, keep your ears cleared, and then suddenly the hatch opens and all the cold-water floods in and then phht, your buoyancy takes you off and you’re outside the submarine and you’re on your way, and for the next 20 odd seconds, you’re wondering are you really moving or not.