It's easy to justify actions and point fingers after an event. The survivors of the fishing trawler say the water was calm enough to effect a rescue by infalatable boat. I'm not saying they are wrong, however, the Navy trains for these events and with reasonable frequency. I think they would have more experience in dealing with recue operations in those conditions than the crew of the fishing vessel. Secondly, the implication of criminal negligence RE the Kursk was due to there being no effort made by the Russian government until there was no hope. These charges were not levelled by the United States but by the families of the Kursk victims. The captain of the submarine has been relieved and will likely have his career ruined. Should the investigation find he was criminally negligent, he will be court martialled. I agree with Amos' views and don't believe that will happen but his career is over either way. Very likely, the crew was ordered not to lower inflatables for the reason I stated above. The crew radioed and got rescue personell thee as quickly as possible. My understanding is that the sub was operating in a designated operations area that has been well defined as such since before the second world war. It has been on charts that are readily available through out the world. So perhaps, the question should be why did the trawler's captain choose that particular spot? My purpose here isn't to shift blame but it seems to me that there are people more than willilng to cast it before all of the facts are in simply because the sub was a U.S. vessel. Ultimately, the facts will come out and recompense will be made but keep in mind, we, the Americans are not the only ones who screw up like this. The Japanese navy had a similar incident not too many years ago in Yokuska Harbor if I'm not mistaken. Kindest reguards, Neil