Posts Tagged ‘Royal Navy’
Carry On – under the Sea!
HMS Astute aground off Skye for several days
The Royal Navy’s latest £1.2 billion nuclear submarine, HMS Astute, has been towed back to base after a malfunction which could have killed the entire crew, the Sunday Herald can reveal.
The hi-tech stealth vessel was taken to the Faslane Naval Base on the Clyde late on Friday when it suffered “a technical issue with hydraulics”, according to a Ministry of Defence (MoD) source…
Experts say that the boat’s hydroplanes, which enable it to dive or surface, are hydraulically controlled. If they fail, the boat could be lost, along with its entire crew of 98.
The ill-fated HMS Astute is infamous for being the scene of a fatal shooting a month ago when it was docked in Southampton, and for accidentally running aground off the Isle of Skye last October. The boat has been plagued by a series of other mishaps, including a fire, being hit by a falling ramp and problems with its toilets.
HMS Astute left Faslane on Wednesday for sea trials, but returned soon after just two days. One insider told the Sunday Herald that the captain, Commander Iain Breckenridge, had “no confidence in the performance of the vessel”.
The nuclear consultant, John Large, who has advised governments on submarine safety, pointed out that the hydraulics that controlled the hydroplanes were “a fundamental safety system that can’t be ignored”.
He said: “If you don’t have the hydraulics, the boat could sink with all hands on board. It’s a serious problem.”
The danger that submarines like HMS Astute could have difficulties surfacing was highlighted in a secret report…that warned that there was a “risk of multiple fatalities resulting from loss of depth control”.
The report was released under freedom of information law with large sections blacked out. But researchers discovered that the censored text could be read simply by cutting and pasting it into a new document.
This revealed that British submariners were more likely to drown than their American counterparts if the reactor that powered their boat failed while they are under water. British submarines “accept a much lower reliability from the main propulsion system” and the back-up system “will not provide sufficient dynamic lift”, McFarlane said.
Back in the day I was US sales manager for a British firm. For eight months.
I resigned when it became clear that particular industry as a whole – in the UK – had never learned any lessons from improved quality control and manufacturing standards folks mostly learned from Japan.
No, it wasn’t the submarine building industry; but, it sounds as if the same culture of “sorting out” incompetent design standards hasn’t gone away.
Want to buy a used aircraft carrier?
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
The Royal Navy’s former flagship HMS Ark Royal has been put up for sale on the Ministry of Defence’s auction website.
Just two weeks after the aircraft carrier was decommissioned at its home port of Portsmouth Naval Base, Hampshire, the Ark Royal has been advertised on the edisposals.com website.
The sale follows that of its sister ship HMS Invincible, which was towed away last week to a scrapyard in Turkey after being sold on the same internet site.
Although the Ark Royal could also be sold for its scrap metal, other proposals for it include a commercial heliport in London as well as a base for special forces to provide security at next year’s Olympic Games.
And a move could be made to turn it into a nightclub and school in China…
The website edisposals.com is run by the Defence Equipment and Support arm of the MoD which has a budget of £14 billion to equip the UK’s armed forces.
Also on sale on the site are three Type-42 destroyers HMS Exeter, HMS Southampton and HMS Nottingham.
Just in case you only want to have a small navy.
Stealth nuclear sub ain’t much good stuck in the mud!
Click on the photo for Reuters Pictures view of the stuck submarine
The Royal Navy hastened to assemble an official inquiry Friday evening to explore why Britain’s newest nuclear submarine, H.M.S. Astute, ran aground while undergoing sea trials off the coast of northwest Scotland on Friday morning and remained stuck on a bank of sand and shingle for nearly 10 hours before a tug pulled it free at nightfall. A spokesman for the Royal Navy said divers would be deployed to check concerns that the submarine’s rudder had been damaged.
The episode was particularly embarrassing for the navy because the vessel, one of the most technologically advanced submarines in the world, was designed for maximum stealth and use in such delicate operations as delivering special forces troops secretly and eavesdropping off the coasts of hostile nations. Its design features and propulsion mechanisms are considered top secret, naval experts said, but both were on display during the grounding.
Earlier efforts by tugboats to free the $2 billion vessel failed, prompting officials to wait until the evening tide to refloat it. Their decision left the 8,000-ton submarine, as long as a football field and equipped to carry Tomahawk cruise missiles, sitting motionless in full view of people on the shoreline throughout the day.
Local residents quoted by the BBC said the submarine appeared to be tilting slightly as it sat about a mile off the coast of the Isle of Skye, close to the bridge that links the island to the Scottish mainland at the Kyle of Lochalsh, 150 miles northwest of Glasgow.
They certainly had a great view of the Black Cuillin. I just hope they didn’t screw up one of the most idyllic spots on this whole bloody planet. The Misty Isle is heaven on Earth – though I have spent as long as 3 weeks in a tent waiting for the rain to stop. 
Nuclear submarines sent to sea as potential floating bombs
HMS Turbulent docked in Plymouth
Two British nuclear submarines went to sea with a potentially disastrous safety problem that left both vessels at risk of a catastrophic accident, the Guardian can reveal.
Safety valves designed to release pressure from steam generators in an emergency were completely sealed off when the nuclear hunter killers Turbulent and Tireless left port, a leaked memo discloses.
The problem went undetected on HMS Turbulent for more than two years, during which time the vessel was on operations around the Atlantic, and visited Bergen in Norway, the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, and Faslane naval base near Glasgow.
It was not noticed on HMS Tireless for more than a year, and was finally detected last month, two months after Tireless started sea trials from its home port at Devonport naval base in Plymouth…
The Ministry of Defence memo, which was written last week, admits that both cases involving the sealed-off valves were “a serious incident” that raised major questions about “weak and ambiguous” safety procedures at Devonport dockyard and within the Royal Navy…
John Large, a consultant on nuclear safety who advises governments on submarine safety, said: “It was a very significant failure. These two submarines were unfit for service. It was a perilous situation.”
The excuse offered – and accepted – is that safety procedures are very complex. Seems to be a perfectly good reason for all the more care and oversight.
