A FARNHAM company has been helping with the £90 million salvage operation to recover the Russian submarine Kursk from its watery grave off the coast of Norway.
Anchor Marine Transportation, based in Tilford, provided one of the barges which was involved in the complicated recovery procedure of the sub, which sank, killing all 118 crew last August.
The company leased out one of their specialised AMT Carrier barges which measures 114 metres in length, to a joint salvage team consisting of Dutch company Mammoet, and Smit International, who used it to transport "suction anchors" which were part of the operation.
These anchors were deployed to the sea bed either side of the Kursk, and a hydraulic saw attached to them cut off the damaged bow section of the submarine, which contains the torpedoes.
For safety reasons, this section was left on the seabed, while the main section of the vessel was lifted by a massive pontoon known as "giant four" which hauled the sub 330 feet to the surface on Monday, using 26 industrial lifting lines.
Alastair Mack, operations director of Anchor Marine, said: "We are very pleased the operation has been successful up to this point, and our barge has been out there since July preparing for the task.
"We are delighted to help in all marine heavy lift situations."
Our company was contacted as we had the type of barge which has the deck capacity capable of undertaking this kind of role."
He explained that their rare barge was particularly adaptable, and "very useful for marine disasters."
The Kursk will now be slowly towed to the Russian port of Murmansk, where relatives of the crew members have been waiting for several weeks for the sub to be returned.
A full investigation into the cause of the incident is now to be conducted.