This Day in Diving History -- 11 April 1968 -- The Glomar E

[Popeye]

On April 11, 1968 the Soviet Golf-II class submarine K-129 sank in the Pacific Ocean 1700 miles north west of Hawaii, at a location still held highly classified by U.S. intelligence. After an exhaustive but unsuccessful months-long search by Soviet vessels, it was clear that only the U.S. knew its whereabouts. The U.S. initially discovered the subs location via five lines-of-bearing from its SOund SUrveillance System (SOSUS) and had USS HALIBUT (SSGN-587) confirm its location in 16,000 fsw. This would lead the U.S. government to conduct a study in early 1970 regarding the feasibility of salvaging the entire vessel. Billionaire businessman Howard Hughes was secretly contracted by the CIA to build a massive special purpose ship that would be used for the salvage.

On November 1, 1972 work began on the 63 Ton, 619 foot long Hughes Glomar Explorer. This vessel employed a large mechanical "claw" that was designed to be lowered down to the ocean floor, grasp around the targeted submarine section, and lift it up through 16,500+ fsw. The claw would be lowered through a hole constructed in the middle of the ship called a moon pool. The plan was that once the object was recovered, the outer doors of the moon pool would close to form a floor under the salvaged section. This would allow for the entire salvage process to take place underwater away from the view of other ships, aircraft or spy satellites. Construction was completed in July 1973 (at a cost of over $200
million) then mobilized via Cape Horn to the U.S. West coast, arriving in September 1973. After sea trials were conducted off the California coast, the Hughes Glomar Explorer was declared mission ready and departed to the location. This salvage mission (code named project "Jennifer") commenced on July 4, 1974 and was completed just five weeks later. During the lift of one of the sections, the claw suffered a catastrophic failure but was able to recover the forward 38 feet of the sub that contained two nuclear torpedoes and the bodies of six crewmen. These crewmen were subsequently given a memorial service and buried at sea with military honors.

Project Jennifer was one of the most complex, expensive and secretive intelligence operations of the Cold War. The salvage operation has been compared to Apollo space program in terms of its complexity and scope. In addition to designing the high tech recovery ship and its unique lifting cradle, the U.S. also had to develop precision stability equipment to keep the ship nearly stationary above the target while lowering nearly two miles of "drilling" pipe. Scientists also developed methods for preserving paper that had been underwater for years in hopes of being able to recover and read the submarine's codebooks. The technologies developed during this undertaking are still in use today both in the military and commercial industries.

Note: A DVD was recently released entitled "AZORIAN: The Raising of the K-129" that further details this monumental mission. There is also a book with the same title written by Norman Polmar set for release in Fall of 2010. To see more info about either of the projects (including the trailer) and/or to purchase the DVD, check out http://www.projectjennifer.at/

Note 2: To read more about the Hughes Glomar Explorer, the SOSUS system and some very high speed Cold War intel gathering type missions; check out "Blind Mans Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage" by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew.

[ovalis]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing this piece of history.

[DiverTim]

Thanks, Popeye. I had read about this before but it is very interesting. Tim

[eskimo3883]

As far as I know it was only used the one time. I always thought it a shame that the ship was just parked in the moth ball fleet. Seems like they could have used it for a number of things after the true story came came out. After dealing with the sub in open ocean bringing up a few historical ships perserved in the Great Lakes would be a cake-walk.

[Popeye]

From Wikipedia:

The GSF Explorer is currently on hire to a consortium led by Marathon Oil, to drill offshore Indonesia until March 2012

[swimjim]

As far as I know it was only used the one time. I always thought it a shame that the ship was just parked in the moth ball fleet. Seems like they could have used it for a number of things after the true story came came out. After dealing with the sub in open ocean bringing up a few historical ships perserved in the Great Lakes would be a cake-walk.

While it's true that the Great Lakes have some of the best preserved ship wrecks in the world, the lake bottom is the best place to preserve these wrecks. The Alvin Clark raising is a prime example.

http://www.acbs-bslol.com/Porthole/AlvinClark.htm

Wooden ship wrecks have been raised and preserved successfully. There is a war ship in Sweden that's a great example, forget the name. It requires a lot of infrastructure and a never ending flow of cash to be successful how ever. Right now theres a U Boat that was raised over in England that may meet the same fate as the Clark. It's kind of a hot potato now I understand.
Best plan, leave them be.

Jim

[Popeye]

As long as we going ot, The ship you refer to is the Vasa which has a interesting history...

Stockhome,Sweden

One of the city's best known exhibits is the 15th century sailing ship, Vasa, which lay at the bottom of Stockholm harbor for almost 330 years. It is a classic case of a military boondoggle. King Gustav ordered the Vasa, and several other ships, built. The Vasa was the largest, most expensive ship of its time.
It took three years to build and construction was expedited to meet the demands of King Gustav who was engaged in a war in Poland. From the laying of the keel the Vasa was a disaster waiting to happen. The design was fatally flawed. There were a number of built in flaws which were not helped by a directive from the king to add a second gun deck when the ship was under construction.

The Vasa was top heavy. This can be compensated for by addition of ballast to the bottom of the ship. But with its design, if more ballast was added, the lower gun ports would have been under water. The ship was large, even by today's standards. The total length was 69 meters. From the hull to the prow it measures 47.5 meters and has a width of 11.7 meters. The stern, higher than the bow, was 19.3 meters, about as high as a six story building. It drew 4.8 meters of water and had a displacement of 1210 tons.

The captain apparently knew the ship could not safely sail. But it was commissioned by the king and was already built. So he sailed it on Aug. 10, 1628. It was a festive occasion. Some of the crew had wives and children aboard. Gun ports were open to show the golden lion heads on the inside of the gun port covers.

The Vasa sank on its maiden voyage. It traveled less than a mile and the voyage lasted 20 minutes. A squall heeled the ship over. The captain managed to right it and continued on. But a second squall heeled it over again, water poured in the lower gun ports and the Vasa went to the bottom with the loss of an estimated 50 lives.

Loss of life was held down because the ship had on only part of its complement and was sailing to pick up the rest. The ship was built to have a ship's company of 345 sailors and a marine force of 100 men. An inquest was held and there was compromising information against three men. One of these happened to be the king and no record of a verdict has been found.

The Vasa went down in 90 feet of water with the tops of its masts still showing. The masts were cut off to hide the embarrassing spectacle.

In 1634 a German company salvaged all but two of the ship's 64 cannon using a diving bell. No one wants to be associated with such a debacle and memory of the sunken ship gradually was lost. The ship was found by research by Anders Franzen. He theorized the Baltic Sea was probably the only sea in the world where big ships might be found intact. The Baltic is brackish, rather than salty, and does not have shipworms, the mollusks that destroy wood.

Franzen began his research in the early 1950s and by 1953 decided the Vasa should be somewhere in Stockholm harbor. He found the ship in 1956 standing in mud on an even keel sunk in mud up to its lower gun decks. The Vasa was lifted from the mud in 1959 and moved, still underwater, to a shallower site. By 1961 it was made watertight and brought to the surface in May and floated to a drydock.

It was kept in a temporary berth and the new Vasa museum was opened in June, 1990, by the Swedish king and is now one of Sweden's greatest tourist attractions. A guide said 95% of the ship on display is original including the elaborate carved wood decorations. Even a longboat was found. The wood was preserved with a spray of polyethylene glycol and the museum is free of sunlight and temperature controlled.

[swimjim]

Thanks Popeye! That's the one I was referring to all right.

Jim

[captain]

I recall seeing the Glomar Explorer working in the Gulf off Louisiana back around 1997.

[capn_tucker]

As far as I know it was only used the one time. I always thought it a shame that the ship was just parked in the moth ball fleet. Seems like they could have used it for a number of things after the true story came came out. After dealing with the sub in open ocean bringing up a few historical ships perserved in the Great Lakes would be a cake-walk.

While it's true that the Great Lakes have some of the best preserved ship wrecks in the world, the lake bottom is the best place to preserve these wrecks. The Alvin Clark raising is a prime example.

http://www.acbs-bslol.com/Porthole/AlvinClark.htm

Wooden ship wrecks have been raised and preserved successfully. There is a war ship in Sweden that's a great example, forget the name. It requires a lot of infrastructure and a never ending flow of cash to be successful how ever. Right now theres a U Boat that was raised over in England that may meet the same fate as the Clark. It's kind of a hot potato now I understand.
Best plan, leave them be.

Jim

The u-boat in question is the U-534. It was originally put on blocks and intended to be a museum where you could walk from one end of the boat to the other. The owners ran out of money though, and the 534 was in danger of being scrapped. Another group bought the sub however, and transported it to Birkenhead, England. Sadly they had the boat cut into 4 pieces in order to be able to move it. A museum facility is being built to house the 4 sections. Museum visitors will not be able to go inside though, they'll only be able to walk around the pieces and look in.
Good that the boat won't be scrapped, but they could at least have put it back together. What a shame..