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• Building, Restoration, Repair and Outfitting
• Boat Builds, Restoration and Repair

K19 sailboat build

• Thread starter stripperguy
• Start date Jan 6, 2023

• stripperguy
• Jan 6, 2023

• Jan 7, 2023

Light and strong. Good on ya.  

It's probably too late now but you should have used side to side Hiking straps. Take a look at the Lightning Class One Design boats. With side to side straps you can go from sitting inside with a foot under a strap to letting it all hang out over the side. I sailed and raced Lightnings in California for about 20 years. Larry  

What is the total weight of the boat ? How many Sq. Ft. In main and jib ? The jib looks a bit oversized in relation to main. It looks like a nice build. Larry  

• Jan 8, 2023

Larry, Those details are in post #1 upthread. Sails are sized per plan as designed by Anthony C Gondola, Naval Architect. And although not seen in the pics (I’ll look for a better view) I have port and starboard hiking straps. It’s vital to keep at least a toe under a strap at all times, as I said, it’s a very dynamic and responsive ride. The poor K19 is currently in wraps behind my garage, waiting for repairs after striking an unseen submerged erratic. Centerboard trunk was breached and centerboard cracked. Just now I’m deciding how to move forward…just repair the damage or convert to a swing keel. A swing keel would lower the risk of damage and make launching and landing much easier.  

Beautiful boat @stripperguy !  

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Horror of Soviet Nuclear Sub’s ’61 Tragedy Told

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After that nightmare voyage 33 years ago, Ivan Kolokov stopped shaving. The skin on his face kept peeling off with the razor. Nikolai Zateyev, his shipmate, lay in bed 18 months while doctors replaced his bone marrow and blood.

Both sailors consider themselves lucky when they remember Boris Korchilov.

Korchilov was a blue-eyed, 20-year-old ladies’ man. Before the voyage he was playing volleyball and flirting. The next week he was writhing in agony, sweating blood, his face swollen beyond recognition. A week later he was buried in a secret communal grave.

Korchilov, Zateyev, Kolokov and 136 other men were sailors aboard the K-19, a Soviet nuclear submarine whose reactor went haywire in 1961. Zateyev, the captain, sent 22 volunteers to their deaths in a heroic struggle to save the boat.

The men won that struggle; the reactor did not explode. But the radiation made it a voyage from hell, with men dying in agony and begging their shipmates to kill them.

Before the breakup of the Soviet Union, the K-19’s fate was a closely guarded secret. Western specialists heard rumors but no details until 1991, when the newspaper Pravda finally confirmed that radiation had killed many members of the sub’s crew.

Crew members were sworn to secrecy. Even decades later, they were expected to lie to doctors in routine checkups.

For years, Russians knew the story of the K-19 only through underground songs. But the Soviet Union, the nation those sailors swore to defend, collapsed, and today the doomed vessel’s crew members are ready to flesh out those sad, romantic verses.

Capt. Zateyev, 67, and other survivors recounted their story in interviews in Moscow and the northern port of Murmansk.

Zateyev’s boat was the first Soviet atomic submarine armed with nuclear warheads. It was named the K-19, but among sailors it became known as “Hiroshima.”

The K-19 was a major technological advance for the Soviets. Engineers built her at a frenzied pace that took a deadly toll.

In 1959, an accidental explosion killed two workers. Soon after, six women died, overcome by fumes while gluing rubber lining into a water cistern.

For sailors, the most persuasive omen that the K-19 was a cursed boat came at the christening, when a champagne bottle struck across the bow bounced off unbroken.

“As in ancient Assyria, where a ship’s path to the water was slickened with the sacrificial blood of slaves, the launching ramp of the K-19 ran with human blood,” wrote Nikolai Cherkashin, a naval historian.

The frantic pace of construction led to sloppiness and shortcuts. Hurrying to finish, a welder let solder drip onto a pipe carrying coolant to the reactor. The pipe cracked microscopically, like a hot glass dropped into cold water. Engineers had installed no backup cooling system. The K-19’s mechanics complained about that but were told the reactor was “already too complex.”

All the same, the K-19 was the Rolls-Royce of the Soviet fleet, and Zateyev and his men, who had served only on diesel submarines until then, were thrilled to take the helm.

They were the elite of the fleet, and they knew it every time they sat down to dinner; they enjoyed delicacies other sailors only dreamed of--smoked fish, sausages, fine chocolates and cheeses.

On June 4, 1961, the K-19 was hiding in the North Atlantic from Soviet diesel subs as part of a training exercise. The cracked pipe burst.

In the reactor room, the temperature soared past 140 degrees Fahrenheit; the gauge went no higher. Radiation was also rising, but the crew could only guess by how much.

The reactor had to be cooled.

“It would have been Chernobyl, only 30 years earlier,” said crew member Alexander Fateyev, a retired captain who is now 56 and an official with the Russian Ministry of Energy.

He said the boat was carrying a second reactor and three nuclear warheads and would have poisoned the sea with radiation had the reactor burst.

Zateyev’s options were limited, a choice of evils.

“At one point, I thought of going down to my cabin, drawing my pistol and finishing all my problems at once,” he said.

Instead, he organized three-man brigades of volunteers to work for five to 10 minutes each. Protected only by raincoats and gas masks, they were ordered to weld together a new cooling system.

One of the first volunteers was Lt. Korchilov, the blue-eyed ladies’ man, a favorite of Zateyev’s.

“I accompanied him to the reactor room door--to his death,” Zateyev remembered. “And I said, ‘Well, Boris, do you know where you’re going?’

“And he said, ‘I know, comrade captain.’

Five minutes later, Korchilov stumbled out of the reactor room, tore off his gas mask and vomited.

“That was the first time I felt: ‘Yes, this is radiation,’ ” Zateyev said. Of the 139 crew members, 22 died of radiation poisoning--eight in a matter of days, the rest in the next two years.

“Right on the spot their appearances began changing. Skin not protected by clothing began to redden, face and hands began to swell. Dots of blood began to appear on their foreheads, under their hair. Within two hours we couldn’t recognize them,” Zateyev said. “People died fully conscious, in terrible pain. They couldn’t speak, but they could whisper. They begged us to kill them.”

The work brigades kept the reactor from exploding, and a Soviet diesel sub answered Zateyev’s SOS. The K-19 was towed to Polyarnyy, a port above the Arctic Circle on the Kola Peninsula. Korchilov and five other sailors were rushed to Moscow. A week later, Korchilov was the first to die; within 10 days, all six were dead.

Doctors told Zateyev that they had received three times the lethal dose of radiation.

Because the corpses themselves were dangerously radioactive, the six were buried secretly in a Moscow cemetery. Not even family and friends were notified.

Korchilov and his colleagues were so radioactive that everything they came in contact with at the hospitals had to be destroyed.

Two other sailors, flown to Leningrad--now St. Petersburg--for treatment, also died within a week and were buried there.

Others survived grueling treatments in Moscow and Leningrad hospitals.

The K-19 was gutted. Food stores, clothing, equipment and sailors’ possessions were stacked on a barge and moored off the Kola Peninsula. Signs declared the barge off-limits, but without explaining the danger.

Word spread to enlisted men on construction duty in nearby cities; they heard of an unguarded barge full of new boots, fine chocolates, fluffy towels and crates of vodka. In a matter of days, dawn broke on a near-empty barge.

“Who knows what became of those builders, once they’d sampled the delicacies of that damned barge,” Zateyev said.

A government commission declared the crew members of the K-19 heroes--mainly, Zateyev reasoned, to keep them from complaining in public.

They were ordered to keep secret what had happened, and their medical histories were falsified. Doctors wrote that they suffered from “damage to the peripheral nervous system.”

“Only a year or so ago did our doctors give us notices saying we had suffered from radiation exposure,” Zateyev said. “That was the system--hide everything. People suffered, died, and there was no reaction.”

As for the K-19, it was soon back in the water. In 1972, it was finally decommissioned at Polyarnyy, where it remains docked, after a fire on board killed 28 sailors.

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, k-19: the widowmaker.

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Movies involving submarines have the logic of chess: The longer the game goes, the fewer the possible remaining moves. "K-19: The Widowmaker" joins a tradition that includes " Das Boot " and " The Hunt for Red October " and goes all the way back to "Run Silent, Run Deep." The variables are always oxygen, water pressure and the enemy. Can the men breathe, will the sub implode, will depth charges destroy it?

The submarine K-19 is not technically at war, so there are no depth charges, but the story involves a deadlier threat: Will the onboard reactor melt down, causing a nuclear explosion and possibly triggering a world war? The movie is set in 1961, at the height of the Cold War, and is loosely based on a real incident. A new Soviet nuclear sub is commissioned before it is shipshape, and sails on its first mission as a bucketful of problems waiting to happen. Many of the problems are known to its original captain, Polenin ( Liam Neeson ). But when he insists after a test run that the submarine is not capable, he is joined on board by Capt. Alexei Vostrikov ( Harrison Ford ), who outranks him and is married to the niece of a member of the Politburo.

Both men are competent naval officers, and Polenin does his best to work with Vostrikov; his men consider Polenin their captain but are persuaded to go along with the senior man, even after Vostrikov orders a dive that tests the ultimate limits of the sub's capabilities. (Such scenes, with rivets popping and the hull creaking, are obligatory in submarine movies.) Most of the big scenes take place in close quarters on the command desk, where dramatic lighting illuminates the faces and eyes of men who are waiting for the sub's shell to crack. By casting the two leading roles with authoritative actors, "K-19" adds another level of tension; if one were dominant and the other uncertain, there would be a clear dramatic path ahead, but since both Vostrikov and Polenin are inflexible, self-confident and determined, their rivalry approaches a standoff.

The sub's mission is to demonstrate the Soviet Union's new nuclear submarine power to the spy planes of the Kennedy administration. The sub's voyage is shadowed by a U.S. destroyer, which is not unwelcome, since the purpose of this mission is to be seen. When there is an accident involving one of the onboard nuclear reactors, however, the game changes: If the reactor explodes and destroys the U.S. ship, will that event be read, in the resulting confusion, as an act of war? K-19 could surface and put its men in lifeboats, but for Vostrikov the thought of the United States capturing the new technology is unthinkable. Therefore, the options are to repair the reactor, or dive the boat to its destruction.

More problems. The K-19's original reactor officer, an experienced man, has been fired for alcoholism and replaced with a recent naval academy graduate. This man, Vadim ( Peter Sarsgaard ), is not only inexperienced but scared to death, and he freezes when the accident occurs. As the reactor core overheats, the crew comes up with a jury-rigged quick fix--diverting the onboard water supply--but that involves men entering the sealed reactor compartment to weld pipes and make repairs. They should wear protective radiation suits, but alas, the captains are told, "The warehouse was out. They sent us chemical suits instead." Neeson: "We might as well wear raincoats." The scenes involving the repair of the reactor are excruciating, and director Kathryn Bigelow creates a taut counterpoint between the men who take 10-minute shifts in the high-radiation zone, and the growing tension between the two captains. Footage involving radiation sickness is harrowing. A mutiny is not unthinkable. And meanwhile, in Moscow, K-19's sudden radio silence inspires dark suspicions that the sub has been captured, or given away by traitors.

The physical limitations of a submarine create technical difficulties for filmmakers--who can, after all, only move their cameras back and forth within the narrow tube. That claustrophobia also heightens the tension, and we get a sense of a small group of men working desperately together under the pressure of death. "K-19" draws out the suspense about as far as possible, and Bigelow, whose credits include " Point Break " and " Strange Days ," is an expert technician who never steps wrong and is skilled at exploiting the personal qualities of Ford and Neeson to add another level of uncertainty.

It is rare for a big-budget Hollywood production to be seen entirely through the eyes of foreigners, and rarer still for actors like Neeson and Ford to spend an entire role with Russian accents. There isn't even a token role for an American character, and the movie treats the Soviets not as enemies but as the characters we are expected to identify with; the same approach allowed us to care about the German U-boat crew in "Das Boot." Are Ford and Neeson, both so recognizable, convincing as Russians? Convincing enough; we accept the accents after a few minutes, and get on with the story. The fact that both men seem unyielding is crucial, and the fact that Vostrikov may be putting political considerations above the lives of his men adds an additional dimension.

There is one surprise in the movie, a decision having nothing to do with the reactor, that depends entirely on the ability of the characters to act convincingly under enormous pressure; casting stars of roughly equal weight helps it to work.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)

Rated PG-13 For Disturbing Images

138 minutes

Harrison Ford as Capt. Vostrikov

Liam Neeson as Capt. Polenin

Peter Sarsgaard as Vadim Radtchenko

Christian Camargo as Loktev

Directed by

• Kathryn Bigelow
• Christopher Kyle

Based on a story by

• Louis Nowra

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• Cast & crew
• User reviews

K-19: The Widowmaker

When Russia's first nuclear submarine malfunctions on its maiden voyage, the crew must race to save the ship and prevent a nuclear disaster. When Russia's first nuclear submarine malfunctions on its maiden voyage, the crew must race to save the ship and prevent a nuclear disaster. When Russia's first nuclear submarine malfunctions on its maiden voyage, the crew must race to save the ship and prevent a nuclear disaster.

• Kathryn Bigelow
• Louis Nowra
• Christopher Kyle
• Harrison Ford
• Sam Spruell
• Peter Stebbings
• 302 User reviews
• 100 Critic reviews
• 58 Metascore
• 1 win & 2 nominations

• Capt. Alexei Vostrikov

• Capt. Mikhail Polenin

• (as Kristen Holden-Ried)

• Marshal Zelentsov

• Admiral Bratyeev
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

More like this

Did you know

• Trivia The director and producers of K-19 were the first Western civilians ever allowed inside the Russian naval base at the Kola Peninsula.
• Goofs When Alexei Vostrikov arrives to the meeting with the Admirals his rank up to this point is that of Captain Second Rank. However, during the meeting he wears the shoulder insignia of a Captain First Rank. In the next segment when he boards the K-19, he once again is a Captain Second Rank.

Capt. Mikhail Polenin : They'll send you to the Gulag, like your father.

Captain Alexei Vostrikov : Well, it's a family tradition, isn't it?

• Connections Featured in Late Night with Conan O'Brien: Harrison Ford/Jennifer Esposito/Wilco (2002)
• Soundtracks L'Internationale Lyrics by Eugène Pottier Music by Pierre Degeyter

User reviews 302

• Jul 22, 2002
• How long is K-19: The Widowmaker? Powered by Alexa
• July 19, 2002 (United States)
• United Kingdom
• United States
• K*19: The Widowmaker
• Gimli, Manitoba, Canada (filmed on location in)
• First Light Production
• IMF Internationale Medien und Film GmbH & Co. 2. Produktions KG
• Intermedia Films
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $100,000,000 (estimated)
• $35,168,966
• $12,778,459
• Jul 21, 2002
• $65,716,126

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 18 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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K-19 just bought plans

Discussion in ' Wooden Boat Building and Restoration ' started by gotthebug , Apr 4, 2004 .

gotthebug New Member

just bought plans for K-19 by Northwest Marine Design, has anybody built this boat, i have no experience with cedar strip or boatbuilding although i am a joiner by trade.I am in need of advice to say the least.  

mlv Junior Member

advice for building K-19 I'm in the process of building a K-19 also. I would recommend going to http://www.bearmountainboats.com/ and buying Ted Moores books Canoe Craft and Kayak Craft. The procedure for the K-19 is basically the same as for a canoe or kayak. You just need a larger, stronger strongback. I've built 2 canoes and 3 kayaks following Moores books. He has the best directions for handling epoxy and fiberglass that I've seen anywhere. The first boat was a Freedom 17 9 from bear mountain boats. I built it with my dad (a retired carpenter). We used Canoe Craft as our guide and things went really well. Good Luck, MLV  

bjl_sailor Junior Member

K-19 in progress hull to be turned shortly. Hi: I've been working on my k-19 since August. The hull is nearly ready for turning. A nasty cold spell here in NEW england has shut down my epoxy work for a bit so I am impatient to get her coated, finished and turned. (I've posted some in progress picts previously with more film to be developed and scanned) I'm using 1/2" thick bead and cove western red cedar planking. Compared to my 12' Compumarine Classic dinghy with a wine glass transom, the planking was very easy with little multi -twist hard to fit planks to lay. I've started the fir lifts for both the dagger board and rudder. I'm determined to finish the hull clear and it looks good so far (not perfect but good)... I also want a little different deck finish. Plans call for 2 1/4" layers of okoume for decking with 5.8 OZ cloth over that. I'm planning to do a single layer of 1.4" ply over the framing and then lay a series of 3/16" thick by 2.5" wide meranti plancks down in a bed of epoxy tinted cream color between measured spaces. The other thing I am not delighted by is the profile of the cockpit bulkheads. You'll notice that it is a rather 'sharp' corner were the deck and bulkeads meet. I'd like to "round" out this profile i.e. more like a 420's curving cockpit 'tubes'... Another thing, check your plans. Gondola sent me a set of plans with a duplicate sheet and one page of the plans missing -- with bulkhead profiles. After I wrote him over it he was rather pissy and informed me I can'easily' make a template in lieu of the missing drawing sheet.... Whatever. I like the design but I wouldn't expect alot of 'support' from Mr. Gonodola.... Please let me know how it goes! cheers bjl  

I got this reply from Gondola on that subject: >My daughter asked about doing the deck and cockpit in glass sheathed strip and radiusing >some of the corners. (we've built several strip kakaks and canoes)Would this be a >problem? What glass cloth weight and strip thickness would you recommend if we were to >do this. If you want that look I would recommend putting down a 1/4" Okoume ply underlayment followed by 1/4" strips. The deck provides a lot of the transverse stiffness that the boat needs to resist the rig forces. You could probably can go without the underlayment and just use full thickness strips but I'd feel a bit better if it was there. Glass both sides and avoid using heavy wood types for the strips if you can. The boat is already gaining weight because of the hull material so you need to watch what you do here because it can all add up faster then you think. Try and keep the dry deck weight to as close to 1.2 lbs per sq. ft. as you can. Cheers, A C Gondola, N.A. Northwest Marine Design  

Interesting. I think both aesthetically and also comfort wise. ' Rounding' that cockpit side edge is going to be an important modification. I mean when you are hiking that hard edge is going to dig in.... My plan is to build the forward 3 bulkeads as per plan and then set up some 1/4" cheap luan ply mock up bulkheads and mess with the profile that way. I'm also going to splurge and buy a teak and hollly veneered plywood cockpit sole. All the same I am fully sensitive to extra weight and everythings been built to spec so far with 5.8 oz That and the the 1/8"-3/16" meranti planked decks, natural hull. I can remember with great awe and fondness of two clear finished, mahog veneered Thistles that raced in our local one of a kind handicap fleet in the late '60's when I was a kid.... That's the kind of "woody high perf" that I am going for... No work this weekend -- weather is in the teens 30 mph wind and no chance I could get my uninsulated metal building shop up to resin curing temp...  

K-19 Construction Photos Hi folks: I ahd posted a few images of this project earlier in another thread but thought I'd place it in this one to help give the the folks with plans a little idea of what's ahead. One is of the boat as I am close up the planking. Admitted a poor quality photo ( you shouldn't put unporcessed rolls of film through the wash I've learned). You can clearly see what is called ( I think the hog or internal keel). Other shots of the boat after fairing. I intentionally attached one of the area I ahd problems with tearout and subsequent filling that shows preety bad. Oh well more carefull next time. The problem was the nails would be comming out cleanly and then tear out the wood. others I was just clumsy or impatient and nicked the wood more than I wanted to. If I finished clear no worries of course...  

Attached Files:

023_21a.jpg.

Looks good. What strip width did you use? I've just gotten started planking. So far, so good.  

P1230041.JPG

Mine were 3/4" wide by 1/2" bead and cove. It looks like your strips are quite a lot wider. You'll be narrowing them to make the bilge turn I suspect? Horrible weather, ahven't been able to work with epoxy for nearly 3 weeks...  

Question re: hull turning. I've been looking at my hull for some time wondering about the turning process. Even with the hull sheathed on the outside the gunwales look pretty flexy/floppy until the boat is turned and the inner gnwale is laminated in. The plan calls for something like 3/8" thinck x 1 1/4" luan lamination and that's it plus the decking system. I'm worried while turning the boat the whole hull shape may be distorted. I've been kicking around the idea of adding a permanent "outerwale" to outside prior to turning. besides altering the hull deck joint it also adds more pounds - something the designer admonishes you not to do. Any thoughts?  

I'm inclined to try to keep the weight down. Wood strip - glass epoxy construction is really strong. It's tempting to add structure and overbuild, but you really don't need it. I don't think you need to worry about the hull shape being distorted before you glass the inside. Even if the hull is pretty floppy, I think you only need to have it close to final shape when you glass the inside. The sheer clamp will stiffen it up some, but it will still be pretty floppy until the bulkheads go in. If it shifts a little, you should still be able to realign it when the bulkheads are installed. I think the hull to deck joint should be fine as drawn. Since they meet at ~ 90 deg, they should each act as a stiffener to the other. (at least it works that way on the kayaks). I've been thinking about the turning process too, but I still have some time before I have to seriously worry about it. I have figured out that I'll need help. The hull should weigh ~ 160 lb when it's turning time. Based on how floppy the canoes were before the inside was glassed, I think you're right about it being floppy. I think the main thing is to get it over without concentrated loads on an unsupported section. If you leave some molds installed, it will probably be pushing 200 lb. I have it in my garage, so I may build an A frame and use a chainfall or a come along. (or get my 6'4" 300 lb brother to visit) I saw a idea in a book that I think I might try. While the boat is still inverted on the mold, I plan to build the cradle on top of the inverted boat. That way the hull is still supported by the mold and I won't distort it with the cradle. Then I can remove the cradle, flip the hull and align it on the cradle. I plan to leave a couple of molds in place - screwed at the gunnels at least. Probably the #11 and the #7, maybe one more forward. (the #11 can be screwed pretty securely, since most of the hull gets trimmed short of it. I'll probably screw through the glassed topsides to the #7 mold and do the topsides painting after I turn the hull. I plan to screw some 2x4 to the molds that I leave in place and make a frame (kind of like a partition, the 2x4s on the molds as studs and some plates screwed to the ends of them) to take the load during turning. I'll support the frame on saw horses and then remove the rest of the mold and strongback from under the boat. Then I'll lower one side to the floor and raise the other side with the chain fall while sliding the lower side across the floor under it. When it is half over, I can lower it with the chain fall. With a couple of molds in place, I should be able to flip it without breaking anything. With a cradle that fits the hull well between the molds that I leave in place, I should be able to align the hull until the two molds are level and the hull should be true. Then I plan to use two or three spreaders at the gunwhale to keep the hull the right width while I install the sheer clamps and glass the inside. On the strip kayaks that I built the hulls were really floppy and twisted quite a bit, even after glassing the inside. Once I installed the decks with the sheer clamps attached, everything aligned well. have fun, mlv  

Yes, I like your idea of building a supporting cradle while the hull is inverted. Have seen that on larger hulls -- I used 5/8" particle board for molds -- very very heavy but cheap and dimensionally stable. I too like the idea of retaining several molds during turning. I have metal joists above, two 2 ton come alongs and a bunch of former 34' 1/2" halyards and webbing -- also ten guys at the ready for a thirty pack if need be. The turning is not so much the worry but the percieved threat of distorting the hull. BTW I have already trimmed my transom back ( roughly from the offsets leaving a good 1/8" to clean up and will also route and radius over the dagger board slot. I Thought it would be easier to layout and cut these before turning. Esp the dagger board slot. I'm going 5/16" radius the slot all around and impregnate the whole cross section with epoxy. I don't need a straight sharp edge there for planing purposes do I? My interior glass sheathing won't be glass. In naive fervor I went out and bought $26.oo per running yard kevlar/carbn fiber composote fabric. -- I figure it would make a super strong rigid hull -- but have since seen postings that it is not only overkill but also won't greatly increase strength unless used on both sides of the coring material. Oh well a chance to try out an expensive high tech material in an area where "t's application learning curve" won't be seen. I understand both carbon and kevlar are difficult to properly wet out without vacuum bagging... Oh another thing! before you buy your doug fir for the dager board and rudder sections. There was an excellant posting about doing them in foam and relying on a carbon skin to provide most struture. If I wasn't 3/4 through cutting lifts I would hove tride that and will probally end up making another set of foils that way -- eventually. Allright enough for now. Rather cool there are now three of us building or with plans for the same boat. The k-19 was my answer to the fact i couldn't find plans to cold mold a thistle sailboat. Also I really enjoy strip building the hulls. For me, to see the gorgeous sweet shape emerge slowly out of the skelton of plywood is infinitely enjoyable. And the smell of western red cedar being faired with a long board is far better than poleyester resin fumes from a C-Flex boat.... I  

Progress on K-19 I set up the mold the first week of January and have been working a little each night and on the weekend. I'm hoping for a launch late this summer. How about you? I also cut the hole for the daggerboard already. When the planking has covered it, I plan to rout a radius on it also - probably 1/4 in. I plan to wrap the outside glass sheathing over the radius inside of the dagger board hole when I glass the outside. I cut the hole ~ 1/16" oversize. I plan to make a plug the right size out of scrap wood, cover it with plastic film packing tape, and put it in position while the epoxy is still soft. Then when I flip the hull, I plan to use the plug to align the daggerboard well to the hole when I install it. How did you lay out the transom trim? I had thought of cutting a couple of triangles at the right angle and mounting the station 11 mold to the station 10 mold at the right position and angle. The station 11 mold is smaller than the transom so it will be undersized, but I thought I could manage to follow the surface close enough with a hand saw. I had already cut the lifts for the daggerboard and rudder. I used redwood, a little expensive but clear and easy to work. I used all thread to bolt the lifts together and plan to cut it off recessed with a dremel and leave it in place for additional tensile strength. I am planning on using the glass schedule specified for the rudder on the daggerboard as well. I'm 6'6" and 265 lb and if (or should I say when?) I turtle it, I don't want to break the daggerboard trying to right the boat. Have fun, mlv  

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Billy Bones Junior Member

Great progress gentlemen. It's nice to see some of these being built. I've had plans for the K19 for about 5 years now. Slightly OT: has anyone contemplated/built/sailed the K23? I've always wondered about the larger model but no one has given it a try that I've heard.  

I thought about it, but the water I have available is too thin. It looks like a decent boat. mlv  

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Good ideas about the dagger board cutout. I was originally planing on cutting it when turned but than began thinking also of radiusing the opening and now that she is still on her back I measured it out and cut it open and radiused it as you've done 5/16" R . Merely epoxied it, now I worry I should have also sheathed it... I used doug fir for my dagger board lifts and have exactly the same thoughts of keeping the 1/2 threaded rod in the board as I too am a bit heavy for a dinghy sailor -- 6'1" 230. I have bought a large amount of hybrid carbon fiber / kevlar 5.8 oz cloth and will use that in two laminations as careful as can be and then a 'sand it smooth layer' of S glass. Plans call for it to be 'neutrally' bouyant with something like 32 lbs of lead. The greater part of 2 1/2 X 48" steel threaded rods should weigh about what?...and then How about a DB 1 extra lift of lead for the tip made with a plaster of paris mold thats nicely rounded. An extra 1 5/8" bit of foil that will weigh 10-15 lbs... I am currently HLVP spraying my hull after enormous effort wet sanding with 220 grit the 4 coats of epoxy I put over my 5.8 oz S glass. (this also entailed a 30 pack) Boasting a bit, it's pretty damn handsome. and now 15 coats of polyurethane 'spar varnish' -- Ok extraneous coats as I had/have a learning curve with new spray equipment to master. Then more 320 grit wet sanding until I can't stand it any more.... I've been saying I am ready to turn for months now... shooting for a late June launch... Planking was finished the week before Thanksgiving.-- Holidays delay and the Cold weather and fb lamination/sanding hell has been my existence since then. For the transom. I marked off all the waterlines shown on the plans and then measured out level all the offsets he has on the profile plan from the profile in -- 5 points I think -- not enough to use a flexible batten and get a fair curve. -- So I cut big and will keep the two most aft stations in the boat until she's turned and I can make a pattern of heavy card stock --- I'll put the transom in temporarily fastened, make sure it is equidistant at both sheers against the last mold station and fillet it in and then take the belt sander to knock off the 'extra' hull left outside-- sound reasonable do you think? I don't like the rudder box detail. Thinking it just isn't 'stonka' enough -- I know how much weather helm can be generated when you are blasting around over sailed, enjoying the ride and throwing your weight out to make up for a lack of caution.... Have you thought of a trapeze? The boat seems to cry for it... Last thing of concern -- for now. I really want to curve the inside cockpit lip. The cautions about weight build up and also changing an 'as drawn design detail' concern me. But that inner deck lip as drawn is too harsh. It will hurt when hiking and it looks boxy. Why bust your butt strip planking a lovely hull form and then have nasty hard 'plywood boat' hard edges where you'll be seating/leaning out? Does the designer sail? Next time I build I will make a 1/8" scale model and look at these things in real time in the real world... Thoughts: perhaps a 3" radius ease over. And then 4 layers of 1/8" Okuoume encourged by hot wet towels to conform extending 3" inches either side of the radius then but joined against the deck. Epoxy putty on the inner cockpit wall helps 'ease the lower lip into the 1/4" Okoume side panels.... Crap more sanding...  

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April 30, 1961: K-19, The Widow-Making Soviet Nuclear Powered Submarine

A Brief History

On April 30, 1961, the Soviet Union was proud to commission their ill-fated nuclear powered submarine, the K-19.

Digging Deeper

The Soviet Union and the western democracies (led by the United States) engaged in a Cold War arms race, with nuclear weapons and nuclear powered ships that could carry those nuclear weapons a key element in the race for military superiority.  The submarine K-3 Leninsky Komsomol was commissioned in 1958 as the Soviet Union’s first nuclear submarine , but hardly the last.

Called K-19: The Widow Maker in the 2002 film, another Soviet ship was actually known informally within the Soviet Navy as Hiroshima  and was, according to the BBC , “ Russia’s first nuclear-armed submarine”.

Barely over 2 months from commissioning the nuclear reactor suffered a coolant leak, dangerously raising reactor temperature.  With the radio system inoperative, the ship and crew were in peril.

Although Captain Zateyev had argued the reactor needed a back up cooling system, none was installed.  That lack led to the dilemma the captain faced: lose the ship or have men expose themselves to radiation while cobbling together an emergency cooling system.

Eight sailors heroically volunteered to do the job, and the jury rigged cooling system was completed.  Unfortunately, the 8 men on the repair team died within a month of saving the ship, and later 15 more of the crew died from radiation. Not only had the crew and parts of the ship been irradiated, but even the nuclear armed ballistic missiles were contaminated as well.

Sending short ranged radio messages for assistance from other Soviet submarines, US Navy ships monitored the distress call and offered to assist, but Captain Zateyev refused American assistance.  To discourage a crew mutiny, the captain had all small arms thrown overboard, except for 5 pistols entrusted only to select officers.

The sub was towed to port by another Soviet submarine that had taken the crew aboard, and the repairs took 2 years before K-19 was back in service.  The sub served until decommissioning in April of 1990. Cracked fact: The damaged reactor was just dumped into the Kara Sea, with no regard for environmental responsibility.

Troubles were not over for Hiroshima after the reactor disaster, as a collision with US Navy submarine USS Gato occurred 200 feet below the surface in 1969 and a fire claimed 28 lives in 1972.  Cracked fact: A former crew member of the K-19 bought the ship in 2006 with the intention of making it a “Moscow based meeting place” for submarine sailors from around the world. No work has been done as yet to make that happen.

Question for students (and subscribers):  Are nuclear powered ships safe for people and the environment?  Should they be banned?  Tell us what you think in the comments section below this article.

If you liked this article and would like to receive notification of new articles, please feel welcome to subscribe to History and Headlines by liking us on Facebook and becoming one of our patrons !

Your readership is much appreciated!

Historical Evidence

For more information, please see…

Huchthausen, Peter.   K-19 THE WIDOWMAKER: The Secret Story of The Soviet Nuclear Submarine .  National Geographic, 2002.

Major Dan is a retired veteran of the United States Marine Corps. He served during the Cold War and has traveled to many countries around the world. Prior to his military service, he graduated from Cleveland State University, having majored in sociology. Following his military service, he worked as a police officer eventually earning the rank of captain prior to his retirement.

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<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier=" 1980 http://www.crackedhistory.com/p=1980"> 71 comments.

Nuclear powered ships are not safe. Both for the people as well as the environment. Take a look at the people that were on that ship! It killed all of them, it’s self explanatory that it is not a good idea at all!

the advantages of nuclear power in a sea vessel are too much for military powers to ignore, so the question is why did the soviets continue to put men in harm’s way without engineering safer designs? why has the united states not suffered the same types of incidents? those are smart questions.

The header of this article is absolutely incorrect ! The first Soviet nuclear submarine was the K-3 Leninsky Komsomol, which was launched in 1957 and commissioned in 1958, about 3 (!) years before the K-19… .

Didn’t know how big submarines could be so big. Such a cool piece of machinery.

Ummm… Harrison Ford has a movie about this!? Gonna have to go watch this now!!!!

The men were courageous for risking their lives in order to save the submarine.

I think it shows how brave some people can be. For such a massive piece of machinery they never gave up.

I wonder what would’ve happened if the Captain would’ve accepted help from the American Navy ships. Perhaps it would’ve helped warm up the Cold War, or maybe the Americans would’ve tried to “kick ’em when they’re down,” which would’ve been very dishonorable indeed.

Shocking that to discourage mutiny, they threw certain weapons overboard! What a terrifying environment to have to live within.

I like learning about technology such as this. Amazing what nuclear energy can do.

And none of this would have happened if they just listening to the captain in the first place…

They should have listened to the captain about installing a backup cooling system.

It is sorrowful that so many people died from the radiation.

Wonder what the outcome would have been if they listened to the captain?

This is why you always listen to what your captain says, or anyone else you take orders from.

I think nuclear based ships are horrible for the environment. They expel radiation and over time, that can be detrimental to the environment.

This article shows how important it is to listen to your boss

maybe if the back up cooling system was installed they could have avoided this event to had happen.

No surprise that the Russians made their nuclear submarine not long after we did. It was indeed a fierce competition.

I can not believe that the cracked reactor was just dumped into the ocean.

It’s sad that a total of 23 men died in repairing the ship along with radiation poisoning. Aside from that, the cracked reactor dumped into the ocean which I can’t imagine how much aquatic life it killed.

The thing that bothered me most was hearing about the cracked reactor. Being an toxicologist and chemist, I would not be surprised if effects of this still linger today in the ocean.

I wonder if radiation taints water if so then that water deposits is now contaminated and i have no idea how long it takes for radiation levels to disperse, i know that chernobyl is still unenhabitable.

Being in a submarine would be difficult. Being in a nuclear submarine would be so much worse. Something goes wrong like what happened to the K-19, there is not much you can do.

My brother was on a sub while serving in the Navy. I can only imagine a nuclear submarine, though. The fear factor would have to be ten-fold.

It was very heroic for those men to voluntarily fix the ship knowing that they would be exposed to radiation and ended up dying from it. This seems like the lives of the men were not valued as much as the ship was.

This is a sad yet heroic story. I could not imagine risking my life and health like these men.

It is sad to see that so many people died because of the radiation.

This is why nuclear war is so dangerous.

It is sad to see that so many of those who volunteered passed away.

Nuclear powered ships are definitely not safe considering the fact that the eight men on the repair team for the K-19 died within a month of service.

I think these ships should be banned. I cannot believe the dangers that have been dumped in our oceans just from military alone. Very sad so many men had to perish on that sub.

I am so surprised that they let these ships go considering how dangerous they are. So sad to see how many people pass away

It’s sad that those men died from radiation after fixing the ship, especially since the ship wrecked in the end of it all and even more men died.

I did not know just how dangerous these ships were. I also cannot believe they just dumped radioactive things into the ocean with no care or worry about what it would do to the environment. It’s crazy how fast the radiation killed these men.

So 1958 is when the first Nuclear Submarine was commissioned.

It is horrible to think that those men who volunteered to fix the the ship probably knew how dangerous it was going to be, and ultimately lost their lives because of doing trying to help.

Technology should be worked for human’s happiness. Even for weapons, we make them because we want to keep the world peaceful rather than destroy the world. The event of nuclear leakage increased pollution. People should remember it and avoid it in the future.

So horrible to hear about this nuclear technology would be used.

Nuclear weapons are a popular topic when it comes to ethics. I feel as though this article shows an example of the negatives of nuclear weapons.

Reading more about war weapons is teaching me a lot and how damaging they really can be.

It is amazing just how dangerous nuclear power can be.

It’s crazy to think how dangerous nuclear power can be, reading all of these articles has taught me a lot about how destructive was can become.

I would not want to be around these ships at all. They were so dangerous.

The 8 men that repaired the cooling system were very courageous and heroic men indeed. I can only begin to imagine the bravery needed to do what they did.

Nuclear power can be very dangerous if used in the wrong way. Power can be extremely dangerous as well.

I believe that we should continue to use nuclear power, but instead figure out how to use it more effectively and safer.

It was a very courageous move for those guys to volunteer for such a dangerous task. Then soon 15 more died from radiation.

I think nuclear work in general should just be given up. There are too many disasters related to nuclear items.

Sad to hear that all of the volunteers passed away and more men were lost due to radiation. Such a dangerous thing to be exposed to!

As with many weapons of war, once they have been made it I all but impossible to un-make them regardless of the danger they pose.

I cannot believe they just dumped that damaged reactor into the sea. I think we should not be using these types of subs.

Maybe the older subs should have been banned since they needed cooling systems, but today, the technology is better and importance to preserve life has taken first seat.

It is sad to see these unneeded deaths happen. Then to see more people died due to radiation is horrible as well.

Nuclear ships should not be allowed, as they pose a great risk to society. Even more disturbing is that there was no environmental conscience when disposing of such.

Wow. What drama. Again, the voice of reason was ignored. I am shocked that the reactor was tossed into the sea. I cant imagine how many times incidents like that have occurred. I was also surprised to see that the ship served until 1990. If that is ever made into a meeting place I will make every attempt to visit.

Submarine warfare is a scary thing. I couldn’t imagine seeing one of these things surface out of the water.

I don’t think nuclear powered ships are safe for the environment. The can cause a lot of harm to people that is not needed.

K-19 was a great movie! Nuclear reactors floating around in the ocean just seems crazy. What seems more crazy is being in the submarine floating around with a nuclear reactor.

Nuclear submarines are dangerous for sailor and the environment, but there is a need for Nuclear submarines in our military. I am shock that submarine was dumped in sea, there must be more to the story.

Unfortunately poor craftsmanship happens when a government pushes its people to create the most advanced weapons on the planet. This was one such occasion were the Russian government should have inspected the submarine more carefully before commissioning it, it would have saved at least the 23 men who died if only a backup cooling system was installed.

I am going to have to watch this K-19 movie, as this story is very interesting. I feel horrible for those who died in attempt to save others.

I am impressed by the fact that the live of this submarine was 30 years considering all of the issues that it had!

Nuclear powered ships should be banned. Exposure to radiation is no joke!

It was probably scary sitting in a huge nuclear reactor. I can understand why the people inboard died so shortly after saving the vessel.

I wouldn’t want to be in charge of that.

This whole submarine carrying nuclear weapons sound like a horrible idea to me. The fact that the captain of the sub would not accept help from the US is just stubborn and stupid of him. They should have had some type of repercussions for just dumping that reactor in the ocean.

It is a shame that men and women are sent out on deployment with equipment that is known or anticipated to not be safe. This is what happened in the Soviet Union and it happens in the US. When our men and women are sent out to protect us we should be doing everything possible to keep them safe.

It is sad that the military men and women were exposed to radiation without having the proper protection to keep them safe. Our military personnel should have the very best equipment to keep them safe, its the least our government could do for them putting their lives on the line.

I feel like anything with the name nuclear in it cannot be a good thing for people or the environment.

Wow this is completely crazy nuclear ship should absolutely NOT be allowed these would do severe damage. It’s a terrible idea to even consider anything nuclear.

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War History Online

The Soviet 'Hiroshima' Submarine That Inspired Harrison Ford's 'K-19: The Widowmaker'

Posted: March 18, 2024 | Last updated: March 19, 2024

The Soviet ‘Hiroshima’ Submarine That Inspired Harrison Ford’s ‘K-19: The Widowmaker’

K-19 was the first submarine of the Soviet Union's Project 658, the first generation of Soviet nuclear submersibles that carried an armament of nuclear ballistic missiles. The vessel was quickly built, due to US submarine developments during the Cold War. On K-19 's maiden voyage in July 1961, she suffered a nuclear incident, which earned her the nickname "Hiroshima" and inspired the 2002 Harrison Ford film, K-19: The Widowmaker .

K-19 was an unlucky submarine

In the 1950s, the Soviet Union began constructing a nuclear submarine fleet. Ordered on October 16, 1957 and laid down a year later, K-19 was unlucky from the very start. During the vessel's construction, eight workers died : two were killed in a fire, while six more died after inhaling fumes when gluing rubber lining to a water cistern.

Following construction, two more people died. An engineer fell between two compartments, while an electrician was crushed to death by a missile tube door when the submarine was being loaded with nuclear missiles. Symbolically making matters worse, a man, instead of a woman, was chosen to break a bottle of champagne on the boat's stern at K-19' s launch in 1959. It didn't break, seemingly confirming the unluckiness of the submarine.

K-19 suffered her first accident in January 1960, following the improper operation of her nuclear reactor. This resulted in the reactor-control rod being bent, and it required the device be dismantled and repaired. After this, the submarine completed sea trials. During these tests, she suffered flooding. On top of this, it was discovered the hull's rubber coating had detached and the whole vessel had to be re-coated.

Despite all this, K-19 was commissioned into the Soviet Navy on April 30, 1961, with a crew of 139.

Suffering a nuclear incident at sea

On July 4, 1961, during K-19's first cruise, a serious incident occurred. The vessel was conducting exercises in the North Atlantic, just off the southeast coast of Greenland, when the starboard nuclear reactor's cooling system dropped to zero. It was discovered the reactor coolant system had a major leak, which had caused the coolant pumps to fail. To make matters worse, the long-range radio system was damaged and the crew couldn't contact Moscow of their predicament.

The reactor's control rods, which control the rate of fission of the nuclear fuel, were automatically inserted by the emergency SCRAM system. This, however, didn't stop the temperature from rising, with it hitting 1,470 degrees Fahrenheit . Capt. Nikolai Vladimirovich Zateyev ordered the engineers jury-rig a new coolant system by cutting off an air vent valve and welding a water-supply line to it.

This was successful, and the introduction of water reduced the reactor's temperature - although it did require those working on this new system to do so in high radiation for long periods of time. They took as many precautions as they could; it was reported the sailors who entered the reactor compartment only remained inside for five to 10 minutes, in teams of three.

This, however, did little to help. In a 1994 interview with the Los Angeles Times , Zateyev recalled that one of his men, Boris Korchilov, entered the compartment and, after a while, exited, ripped off his gas mask and vomited.

The situation continued to grow dire

Radiation ultimately began to contaminate other compartments of K-19 through her ventilation system. Ultimately, the entirety of the crew was exposed to radiation, along with the whole submarine and some of the ballistic missiles. Within a month of the incident, all seven engineers and their divisional officer died of radiation poisoning, with another 15 crewmen dying over the next two years.

Zateyev decided, instead of continuing on the planned route, K-19 would sail south to meet Soviet diesel-powered submarines and evacuate the vessel. American warships heard K-19's distress call and offered to help, but, fearing they may gain Soviet military secrets, Zateyev decline their offer.

While sailing south, Zateyev also feared his crew may mutiny, and he had all small arms thrown overboard, except for five pistols for himself and his most trusted officers. S-270 , a Whiskey -class diesel-powered Soviet submarine, received K-19's faint distress call. The vessel then sailed to her and evacuated her crew, after which K-19 was towed back to the Soviet Union.

Aftermath of K-19's nuclear incident

After being towed back to the Soviet Union, K-19 underwent extensive repairs over the subsequent two years. Her reactors were removed and replaced, with the old ones scuttled in the Kara Sea. This, however, contaminated the nearby environment. After repairs were completed, K-19 returned to the Soviet fleet with the nickname, "Hiroshima," in reference to the atomic bombing of the Japanese city during the Second World War .

The official Soviet explanation for the incident was faulty welding during the boat's construction. Officials stated that, when welding, a welder didn't use the required protective asbestos drop cloths to stop the piping system from exposure to sparks, ultimately producing an invisible crack. When this crack was exposed to very high pressure, the pipe became compromised and failed.

Some disagreed with this conclusion. Retired Rear Adm. Nikolai Mormul stated that, when K-19's reactor was started on shore, no one had attached a pressure gauge to the cooling circuit. Once this problem was discovered, the pipes had already been exposed to the pressure of 400 atmospheres, double what the pipes could handle.

Legacy of K-19's nuclear incident

The longest-lasting legacy of the K-19 incident is its impact on the environment. The Soviet Union, for an incredibly long time, disposed of nuclear submarines or nuclear reactors by scuttling them. Ecologist Anna Ridiger told Lenta , "The Kara Sea has always been a garbage dump. A cemetery for everything you can imagine. Nobody gave any thought to whether it was environmentally friendly or not, they just dumped it there."

Capt. Vladimir Gundarov told MK , "The Kara Sea and the bays in the Novaya Zemlya area were, in Soviet times, the place where spent nuclear reactors and old nuclear submarines were dumped." These nuclear reactors, including K-19's , were mothballed by filling them with a preservative based on furfural, which was intended to seal them for 500 years. Once they'd been sealed, they were dumped into the ocean.

Researchers from Russia's emergency services ministry and the Russian Academy of Sciences recently located K-19's reactor. This didn't come as a surprise. As stated by Shirshov Institute Director Alexei Sokov in an interview with Ecology of Russia , "Our task is to find, map, and measure the level of danger. If the pollutant lies at the bottom, then it is necessary to arrange monitoring, to ensure that the shell does not collapse. If it collapses, then this will certainly entail environmental problems."

It actually wasn't until the early 2000s when nations, such as the "United States, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Japan [and] Norway" partnered with Russia for the creation of storage facilities for naval radiation hazards. These contain these hazardous materials, instead of putting them into the ocean.

K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)

K-19: The Widowmaker, based on the events of K-19's maiden voyage, is a historical drama film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and starring Harrison Ford in the lead role. Set against the backdrop of the Cold War , it explores the intense rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union in the race for nuclear supremacy.

Capt. Alexei Vostrikov, played by Ford and based on Capt. Nikolai Vladimirovich Zateyev, is assigned to command K-19 . As the submarine embarks on her mission, it becomes apparent she's plagued by mechanical issues and design flaws. The crew, led by executive officer Mikhail Polenin (portrayed by Liam Neeson ), initially resents Vostrikov's strict leadership style. However, when the reactor coolant system malfunctions, threatening a nuclear meltdown, they unite to prevent a catastrophic disaster.

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The film delves into the crew's bravery and sacrifice as they work tirelessly to repair the failing reactor, exposing themselves to high levels of radiation. Their desperate attempts to save K-19 and themselves create a tense and claustrophobic atmosphere, highlighting the harsh realities of life aboard a submarine and the dire consequences of nuclear power gone awry.

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War News | Military History | Military News

The unlucky soviet nuclear submarine k-19, nicknamed “hiroshima”.

• Military Vehicles
• World War 2

The misfortunes of the Soviet nuclear submarine K-19 could fit into some mariner’s folk tales of bad luck at sea. Even during its construction, a series of freak accidents plagued the dockyard workers who were assigned to make the K-19 seaworthy.

In the late 1950s, the Soviet Union was rushing to catch up with American nuclear submarine development, and the K-19 was intended to be the first of its class. The submarine was equipped with nuclear ballistic missiles capable of delivering severe blows to the US coastline.

The project was of great importance as, in 1961 when the submarine made its first voyage, the Cold War was on the brink of becoming thermonuclear.  The construction was progressed hastily, which led to ten deaths before the submarine was completed in the shipyard of Severodnivsk in the far north of the USSR.

Project 658 – or Hotel-Class submarine – had a troublesome construction period.  Two workers died in a fire accident that broke out in 1958. Six women died of fumes released from glue used for rubber lining on a water cistern. During the loading of missiles, an engineer was crushed by a missile tube, and another one died in a freak accident by falling between two compartments inside the submarine.

After K-19 had been deemed seaworthy in 1959, a christening ceremony was organized to celebrate the newest achievement of the Soviet Union and the pride of its Navy.

Against naval tradition, a man, instead of a woman, was chosen to break the champagne bottle against the ship during the launch. As Captain 3rd Rank V. V. Panov swung the bottle against the submarine’s stern, the bottle did not break, but bounced off. The crew witnessed this bad omen, further developing theories the ship was in some way cursed.

In 1960, due to confusion among the crew, the nuclear reactor on board the submarine was improperly operated, bending one of the control rods. The repairs delayed the first voyage and some crew members, including the captain were demoted.

The command of K-19 was then given to Captain 1st Rank Nikolai Vladimirovich Zateyev, an ambitious and capable officer who received an early promotion from Marshall Zhukov, Minister of Defense for the USSR.

After several test runs, the questionable quality of K-19’s construction surfaced. The ship lost the rubber coating from its hull and had to go through additional repairs. Several other malfunctions were reported during the trial period, including the flooding of the reactor compartment. Everything pointed to defects in the design, but as the ship was in the spotlight due to the arms race, many of these problems were neglected by high-ranking officials.

On April 30, 1961, the submarine was finally commissioned. Carrying a crew of 139 the K-19 also hosted a variety of missile men, reactor officers, torpedo men, doctors, cooks, stewards, and several observing officers.

During its first official mission, the K-19 was conducting exercises in the North Atlantic, near the south tip of Greenland. On July 4, 1961, the submarine developed yet another malfunction. A major leak in the reactor caused the coolant system to fail, leading to a dangerous rise in temperature within the nuclear core. As well as this potential catastrophe, the long-range radio system was broken, so there was no way of contacting Moscow to advise on their situation.

The K-19 was operating near one of the NATO bases in the Atlantic Ocean.  The Captain’s primary concern was the possibility of causing the outbreak of the Third World War with a nuclear explosion that would outmatch Hiroshima and Nagasaki together in the close vicinity of the base.

The reactor was shut down but continued to heat up reaching a temperature of 800 °C (1,470 °F). It was heading towards an explosion and needed to be cooled down urgently. Captain Zatayev ordered an engineering team directly into the reactor room to create a makeshift cooling system by cutting one of the valves on the reactor and connecting it to a water-supplying pipe.

The men were aware of the dangers of radiation but followed their orders although there was a lack of safety equipment on board. The high radiation level took its toll. After the successful repair, all the men who were part of the engineering team suffered from acute radiation sickness. They were eventually hospitalized, but all died within a month.

Radioactive steam containing fission products released during the opening of the sealed reactor room were drawn into the ship’s ventilation system contaminating to some extent the entire submarine. Everyone was at risk of radiation poisoning.

Due to this accident, Captain Zatayev aborted the mission and headed south in the hope of encountering a friendly submarine that was supposed to be in the sector.

An American destroyer also picked up a short-range distress call from the K-19 and began shadowing it. The Americans offered their assistance, but Zatayev refused, as he was afraid he would be deemed a traitor back in the USSR, a punishment worse than death for a Soviet officer. He could not let the Americans get a hold of the first Soviet nuclear submarine, but his crew was getting anxious. Mutiny was in sight, and as time dragged on, Zatayev was losing his options.

Luckily, the diesel-powered S-270 appeared on the horizon. Despite orders to stay on board the K-19 and wait for the tow boat to carry them back, the captain evacuated the submarine for the S-270.

Fifteen more crew members died in the next two years. The K-19 was back in service several months after the accident but bad luck followed it until its decommission in 1990.

The submarine was involved in a collision accident in November 1969, with the American submarine USS Gato in the Barents Sea, suffering heavy damage. A fire accident a few years later claimed the lives of another twelve sailors on board the K-19. Due to its reputation, the submarine was nicknamed Hiroshima .

K-19 Nuclear Submarine 1961 Incident

Daniel lowet march 18, 2017, submitted as coursework for ph241 , stanford university, winter 2017.

The Soviet Union began building their first ballistic-missile-equipped nuclear submarine in 1958, and named it the K-19. [1] The submarine, pictured in Fig. 1, was completed on November 12, 1960, and could operate at a max depth of 150m. [1] There were three ballistic nuclear missiles on the submarine, each with ranges of 650 km. [1] The building of the K-19 was rushed, as the Soviet leaders were determined to build a nuclear sub fleet that would rival the United States. [1] Production and testing was so rushed, however, that the Captain of the K-19, Nikolai Zateyev, thought that the submarine fleet was not fit for combat. [1] From July-November of 1960, the K-19's sea trials were plagued by breakdowns and malfunctions. [1] However, on June 18, 1961, the K-19 departed on its first mission, as a U.S. attacker in the Atlantic Ocean. [1]

On July 4, 1961, the K-19 developed a radioactive leak while in the North Atlantic Ocean. [2] It is believed that the probable reason for the leak was an incident during the start-up tests of one of the reactors, where the first pressure test went all the way to 400 atm because of a pressure gauge malfunction. [2] The designed pressure was only 200 atm, so this resulted in damage to the piping of the primary system. [2] The person in charge of the test, however, did not report the incident to his superiors, so the repair work was not performed. [2] The leak was located in a pipe regulating the pressure within the primary cooling circuit, causing a sudden drop in pressure, which set off the reactor emergency systems. [3] This drop in pressure led to the reactor water boiling, and the temperature of the reactor room reached at least 140°C, before a fire was ignited in the room. [2] The fire was extinguished, but the major issue was the cooling of the reactor core. [2] The Captain, however, did not react immediately, although it should have been clear that a leak had developed in the primary system in one of the two submarine reactors. [2] There was no coolant system in place to stop the reactor from overheating, so the crew, protected only by raincoats and gasmasks, had to enter the reactor compartment and fix the leak, in an effort to save the submarine from exploding. [4] They developed a cooling system with the drinking water supply on board, which proved to be effective. [2] Although the crew avoided the melting of the fuel and a possible steam explosion, they exposed themselves to doses of radiation of 50 to 60 Sv in the form of noxious gas and steam. [2,3] The crew was evacuated to a diesel submarine based nearby the incident, and the K-19 was towed home to base on the Kola Peninsula. [3]

Within a matter of days, eight crew members who had fixed the leak died of radiation poisoning. [4] Several of the other compartments on the submarine itself, and the rest of the crew also became contaminated. [2] The submarine was later repaired and brought back into service, by replacing the reactor compartment of the submarine with a new nuclear power unit. [2] The two damaged reactors and their fuel were dumped in the Abrosimova Bay in the Kara Sea in 1965. [2] There was then another reactor incident on the K-19 in 1972, leading it to receive the nickname of Hiroshima because of the numerous incidents. [3] In total, twenty-two of the 139 men in the submarine's original crew in 1961 died of radiation sickness over the few years following the incident. [4] The fate of the K-19 was a closely guarded secret, and was not publicized to Western sources until 1991 when the newspaper Pravda confirmed the radiation had killed many members of the crew. [4] The crew members had been sworn to secrecy, and had to lie to doctors in routine checkups even decades after the incident. [4]

© Daniel Lowet. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.

[1] P. C. R. Huchthausen, K-19 The Widowmaker: The Secret of The Soviet Nuclear Submarine (National Geographic, 2002).

[2] P. L. Ølgaard, "Accidents in Nuclear Ships," Risø National Laboratory, NKS-RAK-2(96)TR-C3 , December 1996.

[3] T. Nilson, I. Kudrik, and A. Nikitin, " The Russian Northern Fleet: Sources of Radiation Contamination ," Bellona Foundation, February 1996.

[4] M. Bivens, " Horror of Soviet Nuclear Sub's '61 Tragedy Told ," Los Angeles Times, 3 Jan 94.

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2023 Atelier Interface - Beneteau Flow 19 - First 24 - First 18

• Description

Seller's Description

The Flow 19 is a racer cruiser modeled after Beneteau First 18 and 24 sailboats. It has a much roomier and comfortable cabin than the 18 with ample storage and is considerably lighter, easier to rig and tow than a First 24. Custom built in France by a shipyard specializing in performance boats and composite structures, she is a fast and lightweight 19-footer, perfect for coastal cruising and day sailing. The 154lbs fully retractable swing keel paired with 2 x 132 lbs water ballasts provide a comfortable weight/ballast ratio. The hull and deck are built using wood/epoxy construction and rigid foam in the hull provides positive flotation. Critical parts such as rudders, swing keel and coach roof are molded infused composites. Exterior surfaces are covered with a durable layer of glass cloth and the hull gets an extra layer of protection. The absence of exposed wood minimizes maintenance and guarantees long lasting performance. The roomy cabin has 51 inches of headroom for comfortable seating and can accommodate up to four. At less than 1,000 lbs, the boat can be easily towed by a small car and thanks to her fully retractable keel , she can be launched from shallow ramps and beached anywhere. With the keel up and her flat bottom, she easily slips on a boat lift at your dock. The 3HP ePropulsion electric outboard, allows the boat to be also used as a silent and eco-friendly cabin cruiser to explore rivers and small lakes.

KEY FEATURES:

• Lightweight, fast planing hull
• Ample storage in the cabin and in the two large cockpit lockers
• 24.6ft and lightweight 20lbs mast easy to step up by one person
• Fully retractable 154lbs swing keel safely operated from the cockpit with a 9:1 purchase system
• 260lbs dual water ballast with automatic bailers (for higher performances, the boat can be sailed in light winds with ballast emptied)
• Powerful sail plan, hard chines and twin-rudders for excellent upwind and fun planning performances
• Hi-performance and single handling from simple rigging sourced from a mix of top-quality Harken, Selden and Ronstan components.

Equipment: INCLUDED OPTIONS:

• Galvanized steel custom fit trailer with mast support, removable light bar, and spare wheel.
• Custom hull color
• 23m Code D Sail on with Ronstan top down furler
• Ronstan Headsail furler
• Lazyjacks with Lazybag
• All sails upgraded to Contender ZZP Mylar laminate
• 6-12 Forespar adjustable whisker pole
• Sherman-Johnson headstay quick tensioner
• Twin berth 15-inch extension with cushion
• Coppercoat antifouling
• Full electrical system with 50AH LifePO4 battery, electrical panel with circuit breakers, battery monitor, charger, navigation lights, AC outlet, dock side AC inlet, USB plugs in cabin and cockpit, LED cabin lighting, concealed wiring.
• 20W solar panel on swing arm
• Electronics: B&G Vulcan 7 GPS/Plotter on swing arm, Calypso masthead wireless ultrasonic wind sensor, NMEA 2000 network
• Simrad TP22 tiller auto-pilot
• ePropulsion Spirit1.0 EVO 3HP electric outboard w/ 2 x batteries, standard and fast AC charger, Solar / 12V charger controller
• Swim platform with retractable ladder
• Seadek EVA foam in cockpit
• EVA foam teak covering on cabin floor and aft storage compartments
• Cabin table on removable pedestal
• Deck ventilation hatch (1’x1’)
• Companionway entry bench
• Cockpit sun cover

SPECIFICATIONS: Hull Length: 19 ft - 5.80 m LOA (with bowsprit out): 24’ - 7.32m Beam: 7.55 ft - 2.30 m Draft: 0.33 ft / 0.10 m - 4.27 ft / 1.30m Weight (ready to sail, ballasts empty): 450 kg - 992 lbs Weight (ready to sail, ballasts full): 570 kg - 1,146 lbs Ballast (keel water): 190 kg - 418 lbs Keel Weight: 154 lbs - 70 kg Water Ballasts (X2): 132 lbs ea. - 60kg Cabin Headroom: 4.27 ft - 1.30 m Mast Length: 24.61 ft - 7.50 m Air Draft: 28’6” - 8.68m Sail Area: 22.60m2 - 243 sf Main: 14.1 m2 - 151 sf Jib: 8.50 m2 - 91 sf Storm Jib: 5.5 m2 - 59.2sf Asymmetrical Spinnaker: 32 m2 - 344 sf Code D: 23 m2 - 247 sf Code 0: 16 m2 - 172 sf

Rig and Sails

Auxilary power, accomodations, calculations.

The theoretical maximum speed that a displacement hull can move efficiently through the water is determined by it's waterline length and displacement. It may be unable to reach this speed if the boat is underpowered or heavily loaded, though it may exceed this speed given enough power. Read more.

Classic hull speed formula:

Hull Speed = 1.34 x √LWL

Max Speed/Length ratio = 8.26 ÷ Displacement/Length ratio .311 Hull Speed = Max Speed/Length ratio x √LWL

Sail Area / Displacement Ratio

A measure of the power of the sails relative to the weight of the boat. The higher the number, the higher the performance, but the harder the boat will be to handle. This ratio is a "non-dimensional" value that facilitates comparisons between boats of different types and sizes. Read more.

SA/D = SA ÷ (D ÷ 64) 2/3

• SA : Sail area in square feet, derived by adding the mainsail area to 100% of the foretriangle area (the lateral area above the deck between the mast and the forestay).
• D : Displacement in pounds.

Ballast / Displacement Ratio

A measure of the stability of a boat's hull that suggests how well a monohull will stand up to its sails. The ballast displacement ratio indicates how much of the weight of a boat is placed for maximum stability against capsizing and is an indicator of stiffness and resistance to capsize.

Ballast / Displacement * 100

Displacement / Length Ratio

A measure of the weight of the boat relative to it's length at the waterline. The higher a boat’s D/L ratio, the more easily it will carry a load and the more comfortable its motion will be. The lower a boat's ratio is, the less power it takes to drive the boat to its nominal hull speed or beyond. Read more.

D/L = (D ÷ 2240) ÷ (0.01 x LWL)³

• D: Displacement of the boat in pounds.
• LWL: Waterline length in feet

Comfort Ratio

This ratio assess how quickly and abruptly a boat’s hull reacts to waves in a significant seaway, these being the elements of a boat’s motion most likely to cause seasickness. Read more.

Comfort ratio = D ÷ (.65 x (.7 LWL + .3 LOA) x Beam 1.33 )

• D: Displacement of the boat in pounds
• LOA: Length overall in feet
• Beam: Width of boat at the widest point in feet

Capsize Screening Formula

This formula attempts to indicate whether a given boat might be too wide and light to readily right itself after being overturned in extreme conditions. Read more.

CSV = Beam ÷ ³√(D / 64)

in 2018 Beneteau purchased a controlling stake in the Slovenian builder Seascape, bringing all Seascape models into the fold of its First range. Asym SA: 32 sqm / 344.45 sq ft Bowsprit: 1.4m / 4.59 ft Displacement above = light. Short keel weight: 145 kg / 320 lbs.

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Construction deaths

K-19 was ordered by the Soviet Navy on 16 October 1957. Her keel was laid on 17 October 1958 at the naval yard in Severodvinsk . Several workers died building the submarine: two workers were killed when a fire broke out, and later six women gluing rubber lining to a water cistern were killed by fumes. While missiles were being loaded, an electrician was crushed to death by a missile-tube cover, and an engineer fell between two compartments and died.

Gains unlucky reputation

The boat was launched and named on 8 April 1959. Breaking with tradition, a man (Captain 3rd Rank V. V. Panov of the 5th Urgent Unit) instead of a woman was chosen to smash the ceremonial champagne bottle across the ship's stern. The bottle failed to break, instead sliding along the propellers and bouncing off the rubber-coated hull. This is traditionally viewed among sea crews as a sign that the ship is unlucky. Captain 1st Rank Nikolai Vladimirovich Zateyev was the first commander of the submarine. Vasily Arkhipov was the executive officer of the new Hotel-class ballistic missile submarine K-19.

Early problems

In January 1960, confusion among the crew during a watch change led to improper operation of the reactor and a reactor-control rod was bent. The damage required the reactor to be dismantled for repairs. The officers on duty were removed and Captain Panov was demoted.

The submarine's ensign was hoisted for the first time on 12 July 1960. The vessel underwent sea trials from 13 through 17 July 1960 and again from 12 August through 8 November 1960, travelling 17,347 kilometres (10,779 mi). The ship was considered completed on 12 November 1960. After surfacing from a full-power run, the crew discovered that most of the hull's rubber coating had detached, and the entire surface of the boat had to be re-coated.

During a test dive to the maximum depth of 300 m (980 ft), flooding was reported in the reactor compartment, and Captain Zateyev ordered the submarine to immediately surface, where the boat heeled over on her port side due to the water she had taken on. It was later determined that during construction the workers had failed to replace a gasket. In October 1960, the galley crew disposed of wood from equipment crates through the galley's waste system, clogging it. This led to flooding of the ninth compartment, which filled one third full of water. In December 1960, a loss of coolant was caused by failure of the main circuit pump. Specialists called from Severodvinsk managed to complete repairs at sea within a week. [ citation needed ]

The boat was commissioned on 30 April 1961. The submarine had a total of 139 men aboard, including missile men, reactor officers, torpedo men, doctors, cooks, stewards, and several observing officers who were not part of the standard crew.

Nuclear accident

On 4 July 1961, under the command of Captain First Rank Nikolai Vladimirovich Zateyev , K-19 was conducting exercises in the North Atlantic off the south-east coast of Greenland . At 04:15 local time the pressure in the starboard nuclear reactor's cooling system dropped to zero. The reactor department crew found a major leak in the reactor coolant system , causing the coolant pumps to fail. The boat could not contact Moscow and request assistance because a separate accident had damaged the long-range radio system . The control rods were automatically inserted by the emergency SCRAM system, but the reactor temperature rose uncontrollably. Decay heat from fission products produced during normal operation eventually heated the reactor to 800 °C (1,470 °F).

Making a drastic decision, Zateyev ordered the engineering section to fabricate a new coolant system by cutting off an air vent valve and welding a water-supply pipe to it. This required men to work in high radiation for extended periods. The jury-rigged cooling water system successfully reduced the temperature in the reactor.

The accident released radioactive steam containing fission products that were drawn into the ship's ventilation system and spread to other compartments of the ship. The entire crew was irradiated as was most of the ship and some of the ballistic missiles on board. All seven members of the engineering crew and their divisional officer died of radiation exposure within the next month. Fifteen more sailors died within the next two years.

Instead of continuing on the mission's planned route, the captain decided to head south to meet diesel-powered submarines expected to be there. Worries about a potential crew mutiny prompted Zateyev to have all small arms thrown overboard except for five pistols distributed to his most trusted officers. A diesel submarine, S-270, picked up K-19 ' s low-power distress transmissions and joined up with it.

American warships nearby had also heard the transmission and offered to help, but Zateyev, afraid of giving away Soviet military secrets to the West, refused and sailed to meet S-270 . He evacuated the crew and had the boat towed to its home base.

Over the next two years, repair crews removed and replaced the damaged reactors. The repair process contaminated the nearby environment, in a zone within 700 m (2,300 ft), and the repair crew. The Soviet Navy dumped the original radioactive compartment into the Kara Sea . K-19 returned to the fleet with the nickname " Hiroshima ".

According to the government's official explanation of the disaster, the repair crews found that the catastrophe had been caused by a faulty welding incident during initial construction. They discovered that during installation of the primary cooling system piping, a welder had failed to cover exposed pipe surfaces with asbestos drop cloths (required to protect piping systems from accidental exposure to welding sparks), due to the cramped working space. A drop from a welding electrode fell on an unprotected surface, producing an invisible crack. This crack was subject to prolonged and intensive pressure (over 200 standard atmospheres (20,000 kilopascals)), compromising the pipe's integrity and finally causing it to fail.

Others disputed this conclusion. Retired Rear-Admiral Nikolai Mormul asserted that when the reactor was first started ashore, the construction crew had not attached a pressure gauge to the primary cooling circuit. Before anyone realized there was a problem, the cooling pipes were subjected to a pressure of 400 atmospheres, double the acceptable limit.

On 1 February 2006, former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev proposed in a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee that the crew of K-19 be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for their actions on 4 July 1961.

Deceased crew members

Several crew members received fatal doses of radiation during repairs on the reserve coolant system of Reactor #8. Eight died between one and three weeks after the accident from severe radiation sickness . A person who receives a dose of 4 to 5 Sv (about 400–500 rem ) over a short period has a 50% chance of dying within 30 days.

Fourteen other crew members died within two years. Many other crew members also received radiation doses exceeding permissible levels. They underwent medical treatment during the following year. Many others experienced chest pains, numbness, cancer, and kidney failure . Their treatment was devised by Professor Z. Volynskiy and included bone marrow transplantation and blood transfusion . It saved, among others, Chief Lieutenant Mikhail Krasichkov and Captain 3rd class Vladimir Yenin, who had received doses of radiation that were otherwise considered deadly. For reasons of secrecy, the official diagnosis was not "radiation sickness" but "astheno-vegetative syndrome", a mental disorder.

Crew members decorated

On 6 August 1961, 26 members of the crew were decorated for courage and valor shown during the accident. [ citation needed ]

Later operational history

On 14 December 1961, the boat was fully upgraded to the Hotel II ( 658м ) variant, which included upgrading to R-21 missiles, which had twice the effective range of the earlier missiles.

At 07:13 on 15 November 1969, K-19 collided with the attack submarine USS  Gato in the Barents Sea at a depth of 60 m (200 ft). She was able to surface using an emergency main ballast tank blow. The impact completely destroyed the bow sonar systems and mangled the covers of the forward torpedo tubes. K-19 was able to return to port where the boat was repaired and returned to the fleet. Gato was relatively undamaged and continued her patrol.

On 24 February 1972, a fire broke out while the submarine was at a depth of 120 m (390 ft), some 1,300 km (700 nmi; 810 mi) from Newfoundland , Canada. The boat surfaced and the crew was evacuated to surface warships except for 12 men trapped in the aft torpedo room. Towing was delayed by a gale , and rescuers could not reach the aft torpedo room because of conditions in the engine room. The fire killed 28 sailors aboard K-19 and two others who died after they were transferred to rescue ships. Investigators determined that the fire was caused by a hydraulic fluid leak onto a hot filter.

The rescue operation lasted more than 40 days and involved over 30 ships. From 15 June through 5 November 1972, K-19 was repaired and put back into service.

On 15 November 1972, another fire broke out in compartment 6, but it was put out by the chemical fire-extinguisher system and there were no casualties.

Decommissioning and fate

On 19 April 1990 the submarine was decommissioned , and was transferred in 1994 to the naval repair yard at Polyarny . In March 2002, she was towed to the Nerpa Shipyard, Snezhnogorsk , Murmansk , to be scrapped .

In 2006, a section of K-19 was purchased by Vladimir Romanov , who once served on the submarine as a conscript, with the intention of "Turning it into a Moscow-based meeting place to build links between submarine veterans from Russia and other countries." Many of K-19 ' s survivors objected to the plans. In 2023, The Athletic reported that Romanov had refurbished the submarine to serve as his place of residence in Nikul'skaya , described as a village in northwestern Russia.

Theatre and film

In 1969 writer Vasily Aksyonov wrote a play about the nuclear incident.

The movie K-19: The Widowmaker (2002), starring Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson , is based on the story of the K-19 ' s first disaster. The original crew of the submarine were allowed to read the script and had complaints, which led to several changes in the script. The production company attempted in March 2002 to secure access to the boat as a set for its production, but the Russian Navy declined. The nickname "The Widowmaker" referred to by the movie was fictional. The submarine did not gain a nickname until the nuclear accident on 4 July 1961, when she was called "Hiroshima".

• Andreev Bay nuclear accident
• Kursk submarine disaster
• List of military nuclear accidents
• Soviet submarine K-431 , Chazhma Bay nuclear accident
• Hotel-class submarines
• Ships built in the Soviet Union
• Cold War submarines of the Soviet Union
• Russian submarine accidents
• Maritime incidents in 1961
• Maritime incidents in 1969
• Maritime incidents in 1972

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