A SUBMARINE rescue company which recently won a contract to operate all UK rescue operations for the Royal Navy is part of a consortium which will help create a new rescue system for NATO.
Dalton company Rumic Ltd, which employs 82 staff, is part of a team, led by WS Atkins of Bristol, which has won a £700,000 contract for the first phase of a project to replace the Royal Navy's 22-year-old LR5 submarine rescue submersible.
The future NATO Submarine Rescue System (NSRS) will provide a rescue capability for the four NATO nations - France, Norway, Turkey and the UK - who are participating in the project.
The nine-month contract will identify and assess the technology needed to procure, operate and support a new system due in service from 2005.
A new US rescue vehicle is currently being built which, with NSRS, will form the cornerstone of an emerging worldwide submarine rescue capability.
Founder Roger Chapman, 55, a former mini-submarine co-pilot who was trapped on the floor of the Atlantic for three-and-a-half days in 1973, said the work was "a good add-on to what we are doing now".
"This work goes beyond the existing system, which will take the service well beyond 2005 if NATO agrees to go ahead with it."
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