sharks spool

Spooling on the Prop
(From Eduard Ovechkin’s “Sharks of Steel” https://legal-alien.ru/akuly-iz-stali/glava-v/namotat-na-vint)

Also a well-renowned naval tradition. You of course may be surprised: it’s not XIX century anymore, all those means of evasion and protections are developed, but, and there is always this ‘but’. But all this is easily nullified by the fishermen’s greed, desperation and not giving a damn about strict warnings. Idunno, maybe they have some sort of a competitions as to who catches more subs into their nets, or maybe they have this belief that those who towed into the deep by a submarine get straight into thei fishermen Valhalla, with lots of salmon, booze and women (can’t say why they’d need women though. Preparing the salmon maybe?). So all the warning about the ‘unit’ working in the area are thoroughly ignored and they constantly try to catch us with Syzyphus’ diligence.
“Cap’n, sir, fisherman!”
This sonar tech’s report is what usually starts all these stories.
“No friggin’ way! Where?”
“On traverse but actively switching to crash course!”
“Active mode?”
“Negative, Stalwart (NATO recon ship) in the area.”
“Damn. Navigator, can we leave the area?”
“Negative, sir. Gotta stay here at least for hour and a half more.”
“Well shit. Note into ship log: fishing vessel detected, beginning evasive maneuvers, bearings and speeds vary. Oh what the fuck! It was all so good until now!”
“‘San ‘Seich,” first officer whispers, “recorder’s on, what about posterity?”
“This is no swearing!” Cap leans to the microphone. “This is a rude naval humor! Record that for posterity’s sake!”
“Crew three, ready the Remotely Jetissoned Container launcher! Antonych, shove some junk and pour oil, Idunno, maybe it’ll help!”
“Attention all personnel!” Captain engages the Larch. “Beginning the evasive maneuvers to dodge the fisherman”.
And then two soccer fields long nine story condo starts maneuvering sixty meter below the sea level with her both turbines, both driveshafts and both tillers trying not to look like a school of cod on the echolocator and evade the boat that’s smaller than three matchboxes. To tell you the truth I don’t really know what a school of cod looks like on the locator and how it maneuvers but we never did manage to fool the fishermen. They were always sure we’re the lucky catch.
“His diesels are gonna burst now probably,” Sonar tech reports, “They catch up and try to intercep us!”
“Fucking troglodytes! RJC, fire!”
Hold fellas shoot a spot of oil and junk onto the surface while the fishermen probably giddily shout “GUYS, GUYS, IT’S THE COD!”
Well how else can I explain them ignoring the trash on the surface plus the previous info about a sub working in the area?
“Speed doesn’t correllate to turbine RPM.” That’s navigator.
“Ship’s sliding to the right!” Bootsman.
“Central! Starboard drive shaft temperature rising, turbine RPM decreasing on their own!” MPP controls.
“Of for fuck’s sake!!! Sonar, where are those dull faggots?”
“Starboard, traversing!”
“Bootsman! Fifteen degrees to the surface! Prepare to flush the mid tank!”
“Stand by for the surfacing!” Mechanic orders over the Larch and the sub crawls up to the periscope depth while tilting to the right.
At thirty meter cap is already on the periscope deck and shouts:
“Periscope up!”
Since it’s strictly forbidden to do that at thirty I was couple of meters more, then raise it.
“Horizon and sky checked and clear! Flush the mid!”
As far as I understand, the fishermen meanwhile have already cut their nets since something went wrong.  And at this moment, to their surprise, emerges a Moby Dick, except all black.
“Fuuuk! ” They probably shout. “Guys, RUN!”
“Kill the turbines!” Cap shouts and runs to the cabin.
Normally we equalize the pressure before opening the hatch, but judging by air hitting my ears and absence of characteristic whistle the cap deemed that unnecessary.
“Wat! Watdafuck! Watdafuck are you doing you bonkheads!” Cap shouts while leaning half his body out of the hatch. The rusty boat now actively tries to run away.
“Arkady!” Cap shouts to the first officer. “Get someone to bring the jack screw!” [it’s not really it but I can’t find it in  English]
Borisych emerges, jack screw in his hands.
“Borisych! Pretend it’s SAM or something, try to scare ‘em some! Maybe those jerks shit themselves!”
Here’s how the jack screw looks:
[http://s019.radikal.ru/i641/1510/05/27e2827ea0b6.jpg ]
Really looks like SAM from far away. Borisych hops it onto his shoulder and shouts like crazy:
“Sir! Ready do shoot sir!”
“What a bunch of clowns," seagulls think while trying to land on the missile deck.
Hell if I know what the fishing boat’s cruising speed is, but this one was fleeing like crazy. And yeah, we did spool on the prop. Took us two days on the shore base to unspool it.
Borisych meanwhile decided to have smoke break outside.
“Cap’n, sir,” FIrst officer reports, “Orion!”
“Well of course.” Captain isn’t even surprised. “How the fuck else would it be?”
Orion (NATO sub patrol plane) is already seen with the naked eye. They approach us barraging above the water: going to record the acoustic characteristics.
“Central, distort the acoustic output,” Cap is tired and doesn’t want anything anymore.
We start launching pumps and various stuff accodring to the instructions.
“Sir! Ready to shoo! Target in sight!” It’s Borisych, filled with warrior’s valor, hopped the jack screw on his shoulder again and aims it on Orion, scaring all the bridge in process.
“Borisych, ” The cap is already calm and relaxed, “what are you doing?”
“Wanna scare them some, sir!”
“Borisych, they have at least two nuclear torpedoes on board, if they decide to scare you back you won’t even have time to shit yourself. Eh, hold simplicity.”
“Nah, it’s all right, sir,” first officer reports watching the Orion with his binoculars, “Pilots laugh and clap to Borisych.”
Everyone on the bridge starts laughing too, mostly at Borisych.
“You’re idiots yourselves,” Borisych mumbles while loweing several kilos of his jack screw down the hatch. “T’was the last time I bring my jack screw here you jerks!”
We’ve reported to the base already “Spooled the net, maneuvering limited, awaiting orders.” They obviously issued RTB, where we took our sweeet time crawling to on one turbine. At the base it turned out the navy divers (who usually checked our hulls and stuff like that) are busy with something and unspooling is up to us and A-fucking-SAP!
So we searched for the raft, floated on that raft around the sub in Nerpichya bay while the shore crews laughed their asses off, dove by ourselves and unspooled the damn net for two days straight.