In 2015 JFD were awarded a large contract to supply two rescue submarines for the Indian navy. These were slightly larger than their previous boats and dived much deeper to 650m. The initial plan was to keep as much as possible the same as the previous boats now working in Singapore and Korea, to avoid having to do more re-design than necessary. However, this was not to be for a variety of reasons so an incremental redesign was implemented.
The majority of the design was given to 4 contracting engineers: Craig for the GRP outer shell structure, Connell for the pressure hull, Tom Blades for high level electrical and myself for everything else. Having endlessly praised the Sweden DCE team to the JFD higher-ups, they became my primary resource. Another 18 months in Sweden!
The Sweden team were tasked to make the complete, ready assembled and tested interior modules for each end of the submarine, so that when the tested and painted pressure hull arrived in Glasgow, they slid right in. Each module consisted of all the air, oxygen and water pipe system, ballast tanks, pumps and the complete electrical system. We also produced many of the exterior parts, main thrusters, hydraulic pumps and actuators, vent valves and minor assemblies.
Life in Vaxholm was very pleasant indeed but the assemblies were finally delivered to Glasgow late summer 2017 accompanied by some of the Sweden crew. Both subs left for India in the spring of 2018, but by then I had started on my next project with Triton Submarines.
However, as it turned out in 2022/23, this was not to be my last rescue submarine.
