LR5

The Slingsby LR5 is operated by James Fisher Defence Ltd (Formerly RUMIC) for the Royal Navy as the UK's submarine rescue vehicle. The LR5 was originally built as a diver lock-out submersible for the oil industry and was converted to its current role by RUMIC.

The original small diver lock out chamber of LR5 enabled only 5 crew to be rescued at a time, and there existed no provision for decompression should this be necessary. In 1996 The Navy allocated funds to upgrade the LR5 to enable more crew to be rescued at a time and then transferred under pressure to a deck mounted decompression chamber.

Marlin Submarines were assigned the task of designing the new 16 man rescue chamber to replace the DLO and machinery section. The new aft hull was made from 16mm HY80 to achieve the high payload and is rated to 465 metres. The redesign and rebuild were carried out at the RUMIC facility. The LR5 is now back in NATO service in its successfully up-rated configuration.

LR5 is here shown in the RUMIC (now JFDL) workshop during the rebuild process. The lower hatch is fitted with a hemispherical skirt which locks onto the NATO pattern (now world pattern) rescue hatch of the distressed submarine. The intervening water is pumped out and the hatches separating the two vessels are then opened to allow the crew of the distressed submarine to transfer to the LR5.