Kursk begins journey home

The Kursk has been pulled under a purpose-built barge which will move the wreck to shore

MOSCOW, Russia -- The sunken Kursk nuclear submarine has docked safely with a salvage barge after a marathon operation to raise the bulk of the wreck from the bed of the Barents Sea.

The Russian Interfax news agency quoted Larissa van Seumeren, spokeswoman for Dutch salvage contractors Mammoet, as saying the Kursk had been secured to the Giant-4 barge at about 7 p.m. (1500 GMT) on Monday.

The news agency quoted her as saying the barge was now heading with the Kursk towards dry dock in the town of Roslyakovo, outside the northern port city of Murmansk.

The journey is expected to take two days.

The 18,000-ton Kursk, one of Russia's most modern submarines, exploded and sank in August 2000 during naval manoeuvres, killing its entire 118-man crew.

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Once it is put in dock, the navy will remove the remains of the crew and 22 Granit supersonic cruise missiles.

Once in Roslyakovo, the wreck will then be sealed and towed to the nearby shipyard at Snezhnogorsk where its nuclear fuel will be unloaded and the vessel cut up.

During the lifting operation, the 18,000 tonnes submarine was lifted on steel cables lowered from the Giant 4 barge and put in clamps underneath -- its protruding conning tower and tail fins fitting into niches carved in the barge.

Seumeren said the submarine was less deeply embedded in the seabed than believed.

"We started to pull and there was almost no suction," she said. "It was lifted up easily."

Vice Admiral Mikhail Motsak, the Russian naval commander overseeing the recovery operation, said the Kursk should arrive in Roslyakovo on Wednesday, provided the weather stays calm.

"We know the weather forecast and will go directly to the Kola Bay," Motsak told The Associated Press.

During the lifting, remote-controlled cameras and divers inspected the submarine, checking gauges monitoring radiation and the vessel's angle in relation to the barge, said Captain Igor Babenko, a spokesman for the Russian Northern Fleet.

"The lifting has gone without a hitch. The divers have inspected the submarine and found no flaws in the salvage equipment," Babenko told AP.

Each of the 26 cables lowered from the barge and plugged into the holes cut in the Kursk's hull is a bundle of 54 super-strong steel ropes.

A central computer was controlling every inch of lifting, neatly balancing the required effort between lifting cables.

No holes were cut in the Kursk's reactor compartment, which houses twin nuclear reactors.

The Russian Navy and the salvage team say the reactors have been safely shut down and posed no threat to the salvage effort.

"The radiation situation has remained normal," van Seumeren said.

The Dutch consortium has already severed the submarine's mangled forward section, which will be left on the seabed because of concern that it might have broken off and destabilised the lifting.

The salvage operation is costing the Russian government about $65 million.

The government said the Kursk must be raised to avoid any potential danger to the environment from its nuclear reactors and to shipping because of its position in shallow waters.

The navy also hopes to determine the cause of the Kursk's sinking, which remains unknown.