1、A new 300-meter diving barge, the Shenqian - or Deep Diving - has been put into operation.It is expected to significantly expand this countrys deep-water rescue and salvage capabilities.CRIs Shen Chengcheng has more.The ship has been handed over to the Shanghai Salvage Company under the Ministry of
2、Transport in the coastal port city of Qingdao.The Shenqian, Chinas first high-depth salvage diving mothership, is 126 meters long and a full-load displacement of over 15,860 tons.It also has a helicopter landing platform on its bow.Its wheelhouse is equipped with an automatic positioning system, whi
3、ch can pinpoint any given location below the water within 30-centimeters.The ships entire diving system is composed of a diving bell, an airlock cabin, a cabin capable of accommodating 12 people and an escape capsule.The diving bell can make depths of 300 meters with three divers, who can then swim
4、out of the bell for underwater rescues or maintenance work.Saturation diving is currently the only way to allow divers to be directly exposed to high pressures and to perform underwater operations.It is widely used in rescuing submarines, salvaging vessels in distress and conducting seabed construct
5、ion.Chen Yongjun is the captain of the Shenqian.The scuba diving that we previously applied only allowed us to dive 60-70 meters and stay in operation for about 20-30 minutes. Divers had to come back aboard to relieve pressure. It takes too much time. Now that we have this set of equipment, our divi
6、ng depth will be greatly extended to 300 meters with no time limits for operations, greatly improving efficiency.Shen Hao, director of the Shanghai Salvage Company, says Chinese engineers are hoping to go deeper.We are planning for the next step to build a 500-meter deep-diving support ship and a se
7、t of 500-meter saturation diving equipments, bringing our countrys deep-diving capacity up to advanced world levels.In addition, the Shenqian is also equipped with an unmanned remote-controlled submersible that can hit depths of some 3-thousand meters, which covers off about 70-percent of the depths in Chinas ocean territory.For CRI, Im Shen Chengcheng.