Dockside Trials of Bester-1 Rescue Submersible Start in April 2013

31.10.2012 Dockside trials of the Bester-1 deep-sea rescue submersible (Project 18271) carried by rescue ship Igor Belousov will start in Apr 2013, director general of JSC Admiralteyskie Verfi shipyard Alexander Buzakov said on Oct 30 at the ship's launching ceremony.

The manned deep-sea submersible was developed by the Lazurit Design Bureau (Nizhny Novgorod) and is being constructed at Admiralteyskie Verfi.

Main purpose of the Bester-1 submersible is underwater search and examination works. Operating depth is over 700 meters.

The Project 18271 rescue submersible was designed as an upgrade for Project 18270 Bester. The latter one was built in 1994 and was the first Russian mobile underwater rescue vehicle. First transportation trials of the Bester by automobile and air carriage (An-124 airplane) were successfully held in 1996.

Comparing to her predecessor, Bester-1 has following advantages:

- new integrated radioelectronics;
- life-support system reliably working at high pressure inside rescue compartment and providing decompression of rescuees by stream ventilation;
- high-performance "smart" manipulators;
- rescuees can be taken onboard by "dry" and "wet" method (at depths down to 60 meters).

Except for new equipment providing more effective rescue operations, some radically new technologies having no analogs worldwide were introduced in the Bester-1 submersible such as automatic submarine docking system.