One of South Africa’s controversial new submarines, the SS Constitution, has broken the record for the deepest dive after its novice crew accidentally sank the vessel and wedged it into a seabed canyon in the South Atlantic. The navy has confirmed that the crew are “elated and will savour the achievement until the batteries and tinned food run out”.The submarine was named after the South African constitution earlier this year, after the navy asked the ANC’s National Executive Council to “suggest names that might represent something in South Africa’s recent history that has disappeared without a ripple”.

Rear Admiral Nelson Chikane said the NEC’s suggestions had included the Scorpions, Zanele Mbeki and Amor Vittone, but that ultimately government and the navy had felt that Constitution was the most appropriate name as, like its namesake, “it could always be changed later”.

Briefing journalists at the Simonstown naval base this morning, Chikane said that the record had been broken after some of the cadets had opened the hatch “to get some air” at a depth of 500 metres.

He added that subsequent efforts to save the vessel had resulted in “agitated behaviour” from the novice crew, including “accidentally locking the captain in the fridge, firing the instruction manual out of a torpedo tube, and putting the submarine into second gear when reverse was required”.

However he said that the navy was proud of how the seamen had turned a crisis into a triumph.

“Approximately three hours after the accident, the Constitution reached a depth of 2100 metres, whereupon it wedged safely inside a narrow canyon, upside down and tilting slightly towards the stern.”

He confirmed that this was 2100 metres deeper than any of the navy’s current submarines had dived, and said that the office of President Thabo Mbeki had already radioed the submariners, congratulating them for “reaching new depths just when it seemed that South Africans couldn’t sink any lower”.

Meanwhile Deputy Minister of Defence Caligula Mshenge has reassured panicked family members, saying that a rescue operation is being planned.

“As soon as we train another crew, and find the immobiliser clicker for the SS Queen Modjadji, we’re on our way,” he told a media briefing in Pretoria.

“We will bring them home. This I vow.”

Mshenge declined to elaborate further on his vow or on the condition in which the submariners would be brought home, but he promised that if rescuers discovered that “things had got a bit soggy” aboard the Constitution, the families of the submariners would be compensated with a gift pack of ANC T-shirts and caps, and lifetime free passes to uShaka Marine World in Durban “to give them the sense of being close to their loved ones”.