HMS Daring has taken on fuel for the first time in years, in the clearest sign yet that the destroyer is close to going back to sea after nearly a decade tied up alongside, according to the ship.
The ship’s own account posted the moment on Tuesday evening, noting she “hasn’t heard this over main broadcast for quite some time” before giving the pipe: “Do you hear there. No smoking, no naked lights, fuelling Ship.” A photograph with it shows a bunkering tanker secured alongside, hoses run across to the destroyer, and a rating on the upper deck watching it happen.
The pipe warns the ship’s company that fuel is going aboard and that ignition sources are banned while it does. Warships take on fuel because they are going somewhere.
Daring has been out of service since April 2017, and we reported last year when she passed 3,000 days alongside. She is now at roughly 3,470 days, or nine years and six months.
The vessel underwent the Power Improvement Project, the replacement of the diesel generators that had left the Type 45 class at risk of losing all power at sea, along with a wider package of refit work. She came back to Portsmouth in early 2023 and has not moved since.
Crewing began ahead of trials, with shakedown expected from around the turn of this year. That would be her first time off the wall since 2017.
The Power Improvement Project has worked through the class ship by ship, with Dauntless completing the same work before her. The intention is to hold the destroyers in service into the 2030s, and a study is now running on whether their out of service dates can be pushed further right.
Another step forward for availability. Lets hope sea trials go well and we get another Destroyer available for tasking.
It’ll be good to se her back, but what a fiasco this has all been. We have to get better.
This should be subject to an enquiry but that would cost a lot of money and all that must go on the fleet, instead of lawyers’ pockets.
10 years almost out of comisison simply for the replacement of diesel generators is a bit crazy…
No the PIP only takes a year or so. It was due to crew shortages and using parts for other ships!
All the other ships have been way quicker. Dimond should be back I think 2028
It was because of crew shortages.
Good things come to those that wait?
Will she have to go back in for another refit for sea ceptor and NSM?
Incredible maintenance work can take almost 10 years. No point holding an inquiry I think we can guess what most of the findings would be and yes it would cost money but no where near as much as having this asset along side since April 2017. The RN MOD etc really needs to do a lot better than this utter shambles.
On a positive it’s good news she is going to return to service. Does that mean we will have 3 type 45’s available?
Good news but absolutely scandalous to have a major warship out of commission for nearly a decade!
No senior leader in uniform has taken responsibility for this utter shambles. Surely with so little sea time they can remain in service until at least 2050.
As much as I like to see her back on operations I do wonder if it would have been better to keep her a bit longer in refit for the SAMPSON upgrades and installation of Sea Ceptor.
Good to see her return to the fleet. The lack of money is preventing the refit these ship badly need to be a 21st century goal keeper of the fleet.
They need the utterly useless and totally obsolete 4.5 ” landed and replaced with a Bofors gun fit, the 57mm and twin 40mm guns, plus dragon fire to provide robust defence against mass drone attacks.
When looking at the roughly 3,300 total days, nearly 9 years, that HMS Daring spent out of service, the breakdown of how that time was spent reveals a stark imbalance.
The actual physical cutting of the hull, and the removal of the old WR-21 gas turbines, then welding in the three new V16 diesel generators, and structural shipyard work took roughly 1.5 to 2 years of active labor … primarily while she was at Cammell Laird and during her initial/final phases in Portsmouth.
Those remaining 5.5+ years; over 2,000 days, were spent completely sidelined without physical engineering work happening. That massive block of non-engineering time breaks down into a combination of administrative, logistical, and workforce bottlenecks.
The initial lay-up 2017–2019 saw her sitting untouched in cold storage in Portsmouth for years simply because the Royal Navy lacked the sailors to crew her and they prioritised other ships.
Due to dockyard queue backlogs she waited years for a heavy dry-dock slot to open up in the UK’s severely restricted defense industrial base before she could even be towed to the shipyard.
There was a supply chain and post-refit gridlock after years lost to component sourcing, combat-system re-integration, and crucially sitting pierside after the engineering was finished because the Navy still didn’t have the specialised personnel ready to take her back to sea.
Thus … while the ship was designated as being “in refit/upgrade” for nearly a decade, the actual spanner-turning engine replacement only occupied a fraction of that timeline. The vast majority of those years were spent waiting in queues, sitting empty, or stalled by manpower shortages.
HMS Dauntless was the first of the t45s to enter the yards, complete the PIP, and finish her trials to return to active service after finishing her heavy refit phases around late 2022.
HMS Daring was the very first ship where the engineering design, blueprints, and structural cutting schemes were originally mapped out, because she is the lead ship of the entire class. However … because HMS Daring got bogged down by administrative delays, funding pauses, and long stretches of sitting idle after her initial planning, HMS Dauntless actually bypassed her in the queue, entered the shipyard later, and managed to complete her physical refit much faster … Crazy.