The one on the left, I can’t really see anything there. The second one, on the sail, is just one of her signs painted on the side of the sail. The one in front of that, is just a black hole, I think one of her navigation lights.
The list you see, is fake, it’s just the hull shape, she’s not flat on the bottom. To put something in a dry dock, you have to be really careful in positioning it, you have to put the support blocks etc. just below some frames and bulkheads as otherwise the ship will collapse under its own weight and pressure caused by that.
You can see the answers to your “sail questions” here.
http://smit.clickfactor.nl/kursk/salvage/index.htm
This site is very interesting, although they don’t show pictures of the ship in dry-dock, only the one posted above.
Nonetheless you can very well see where they have drilled the holes and the cutting methods are also in one of the download files.
It should be said that this is the most dangerous part of Marine operations, the off-shore world, fingers and limbs get lost, people get cut in parts, underwater explosions etc. Lots of dead people there. Nasty job, but nice payment. As you can see on the hole drilling pictures, these holes will most probably not be exactly round shaped. They also explain that some of the holes, depending on the spot, are differently shaped.
the side hole, it is assumable that a cable has just cut itself a way into the steel, you have to imagine the pressure of a few thousand tons of steel on a wire(s) with a diameter of approx 100mm. You can also see the “entrance” of that cable in the right upper corner of this hole.
This is what I think the wire went, could be very wrong of course, but judging from the hole and the wreckedge around it and on the pressure hull cutting edge, I think it’s possible.
I have taken a second look, the thing on the upper left you have notified is a piece of the dry dock, the hull is intact in that area.
Brute,
the other “lifting” holes were made on top of the submarine. But, as you can see, it is very hard to make a hole in this part, as you would have to make a hole in the lid of the launcher, which is by all means of doubtful strength. Better to make the hole on the side then.
On the other hand, It could have been a cable to keep the sub in an upright position, only made later, not for lifting.
Another option is just that they’ve banged her against something and that a rock or something tore a hole in the structure, the water and pressure changes encountered during lifting such weakened hulls causes extra damage too. With this kind of weights you a very small collision with an object gives some very bad damage.
So basically, it could be a lifting hole, but I am not sure of that, there are other options for cutting a hole in the hull. The curve around the hole, slightly going aft and down could very easily be created by a steel wire to keep the sub upright in the dry dock. (what do you mean with Strech Mark?)
On this picture, you can see the “plane” they have cut, not a clean cut as it seems, but that is again caused by raising the weakened sub, you can see many parts hanging further forward of the cut, metal that has been bent forward etc. some of it will probably have bent aft too…
The green line, shows the cut off 11m pressure hull. (I refer to the picture above to have a check yourself as the green line blocks it, but shows which part I mean). Another note, above that green line, slightly to the right, you can see that pressure hull is quite torn apart, again something that leads to think they have put a steel cable in there to keep her at her place. The cable most probably cut her way down/aft towards the hole. Only an assumption of course.
On the other hand, if it really were a torpedo hole or something doubtful enough for any specialist to see, the Russians would have had about a year, with all this off-shore cutting equipment in place, to cut that hole out or cover up any doubtful sign of such a hit. If it really was doubtful, they would have probably made a rectangular hole, removing some entire plates and no one would have been nagging. It wouldn’t even be a problem to ask Mammoet to do that as these companies can earn extra money with this and basically only few people would know about this operation.
Just a few ideas.
Edit, forgot the picture, here it is:
Since when is a torpedo broader on the aft side than on the front side?
And depressurising happens with planes, as they fly in thin air, with subs you’d get the adverse effect.
But how many times more do I have to tell these holes were CUT while salvaging the sub???
That’s a cutting wire…
If not cut by this, then it was done by the Abrassive Jet Cutter used to make the holes for lifting cables. They have cut 26 holes in the submarine, about 700mm in diameter, slightly larger on the outer hull. Now, if you compare that diameter with the size of the humans that stand below it, you can estimate it is approx. 700-1000mm, which is very accidently the size of the cut holes to lift her.
The red rectangle shows one of the Granit tubes, if a torpedo would have hit there, it would have been blown and wrecked. But it isn’t. The tube posed quite a problem for the lifters as they at first didn’t know where to put the lifting holes… The cut was clean, but other damages have been posed by lifting the vessel. By cutting holes and having a huge blast like Kursk obviously had, the structural strength was gone. Some loose plates fall of by the current, some are just loose by the former blast etc.
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