HMS Upholder (Or whatever its called now) left stranded!

[the_leander]

The former HMS Upholder, bought by the Canadians has suffered not one, but two fires on board, and is currently stranded off the coast of Ireland, without power.

Several crew have been injured, and are awaiting airlift. Bad weather has stopped the British Navy from picking up the lads and towing the sub back to Scotland.

More news as I get it (or someone else does).

[the_leander]

KennyR wrote:
Buy British!

Lol

Seriously though The Upholder class subs are damned good bits of kit, and in their original configuration, were increadibly reliable according to former crew members testamonies... I really have to wonder if in Canada's desire to save costs by removing capability, they haven't sacrificed safety.

[the_leander]

Oh be sure that people involved with the Armed forces will know exactly whats going on, to find out for yourself however, would require getting to know these lads and lasses.

[the_leander]

--UPDATE--

One of the crew who were airlifted to hospital has died of his injuries according to the BBC.

One of our type 23 frigates is in the area and it was one of her helicopters that did the lift. Once in posission its likely that the frigate will be used to tow the sub back to port for imediate repairs.

I Seriously want to know WTF has gone off here. From the report made by the BBC, it looks like the MOD have been more then a tad sloppy in their refitting of the mothballed subs.

If this is the case, then I can only offer my condolances to the family of the crewman who died.

As someone who served in the Navy, I am disgusted at this. Looking at the state of one of the other subs that went over to Canada in the report, I am furious, that boat should never have left dock, let alone gone trans atlantic!

How dare the beancounter who thought this scheme up (cut costs by doing a sloppy job and pass on those costs to the canadians later on) threaten the lives of servicemen in the silent service!

 :pissed:  :pissed:  :pissed:  :pissed:  :pissed:  :pissed:

[the_leander]

ltstanfo wrote:

the_leander wrote:
--UPDATE--

One of the crew who were airlifted to hospital has died of his injuries according to the BBC.

One of our type 23 frigates is in the area and it was one of her helicopters that did the lift. Once in posission its likely that the frigate will be used to tow the sub back to port for imediate repairs.

I Seriously want to know WTF has gone off here. From the report made by the BBC, it looks like the MOD have been more then a tad sloppy in their refitting of the mothballed subs.

If this is the case, then I can only offer my condolances to the family of the crewman who died.

As someone who served in the Navy, I am disgusted at this. Looking at the state of one of the other subs that went over to Canada in the report, I am furious, that boat should never have left dock, let alone gone trans atlantic!

How dare the beancounter who thought this scheme up (cut costs by doing a sloppy job and pass on those costs to the canadians later on) threaten the lives of servicemen in the silent service!

 :pissed:  :pissed:  :pissed:  :pissed:  :pissed:  :pissed:

Sorry to cross post (I keep forgetting to check this forum...I usually stay in politics) but there is an update on the CNN website:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/10/07/submarine.rescue/index.html

It now appears possible that the overall condition of these four subs is so bad that the Canadian MOD is considering sueing?  My condolenses to the family of the deceased crewman as well.

Regards,
ltstanfo

Heh, no worries :-D

If thats the case (as its starting to look like) then none of those boats should ever have passed even a cursery saftey check by a loyds inspector (Loyds insure all boats and send out their own inspectors before anything can set to sea).

I must admit I have some very bad feelings about all of this, because as Glaucus has alluded to, the boats they've gotten thus far have had to go in for extensive refitting before their lads were happy to use them.

I hope they do sue, because this sort of slapdash workmanship simply cannot be accepted, especially for a submarine, where everything is that much more dependant on your equipment working because of the environment they are designed to work in.

And how one of the officers had the gall to turn around and say that the boats had been refitted and trialed prior to handover and was happy with their condition... it beggers belief... Only one british submarine has sunk in the last 50 years when it wasn't supposed to (Sunk as in gone down never to come up, not as in controlled submergence) and that was due in full to poor maintainance. Since then every government and every Naval commander in chief, and every contractor has made damned certain that nothing goes out that shouldn't, it even written into contractors contracts that any default in a vessel they work on must be fixed at the first oportunity since they will be held liable if they don't. Yes mistakes can be made, but nothing along the lines of what the Canadians are experiencing.

there is another possibility, that the four submarines have been in mothballs for so long, and the equipment not maintained to battle ready status, that they have aged far worse then expected. 7 years is a damned long time not to do some really in depth maintainance.

[the_leander]

No worse then being in a tunnel in a car tbh, whilst theres not much space aboard a british sub, its comfortable. The smell... you don't notice it untill you get out of one and then turn to go straight back in ;-)

not being claustrophobic helps of course, but basically if you can handle being on a train, you can handle being in a sub, unlike Ships, once submerged the waves don't cause the boat to rock, so after about 30 mins on the surface at the beginning and end of a trip, its rock steady :-D

[the_leander]

Trafalgar and Switsure class boats... they're bigger, but not by much then ww2 boats ;-)

As for Typhoon Class boats.... they were significantly longer then Charlie class vessels iirc, and their hulls were in three parts, the pressure hull for the crew, and two smaller presurised hulls that held the reactors and propulsion systems from what I've been told.

swimming pools? only if the reactors leaked ;-) but yes the quarters were very spacious by most standards, but you have to remember that most of that space was taken up by missile silos.

oh and its present tense on their size, they *are* big subs, as they're still around rusting in the dockyards. The pholipines at one point wanted to buy one and hook it up to their mains power grid, using its reactors to supply electricity... It was recommended against for some reason.

Another interesting fact is that the worlds fastest hunter killer submarine (and possibly fastest submarine period) was the Russian Alpha Class, with a top speed just shy of 50 Knotts, and with its titanium hull, it was also one of the deepist diving combat submarines ever produced.