Timelines and estimated costs for the repairs to damaged aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales have yet to be established.
The aircraft carrier is currently in drydock at Rosyth in Scotland. The following information came to light via a written Parliamentary question.
Mark Francois, Member of Parliament for Rayleigh and Wickford, asked:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what his latest estimate is of (1) timings and (2) costs for the completion of the current repair work on the propulsion system of HMS Prince of Wales.
Alex Chalk, Minister of State for the Ministry of Defence, responded:
“Timelines and estimated costs for the repairs to HMS PRINCE OF WALES have not yet been determined as investigations to establish the extent of the work required are still ongoing.”
What happened?
We reported earlier this year that the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales suffered damage to her propellor shaft near the Isle of Wight. The UK Defence Journal was the first news website in the country to break this story.
British aircraft carrier finally on way to Scotland for repairs
Top brass remain optimistic
The ship sailed to Rosyth with a full complement of crew – 750 men and women – who will remain with the ship and continue training for renewed operations as well as supporting the maintenance package while in Rosyth.
“While alongside in Rosyth, they will continue to crew and train on the ships systems for their operational roles while also taking advantage of their temporary new home’s stunning Scottish landscape to undertake leadership and adventurous training activities during the autumn and winter months.”
Captain Richard Hewitt was quoted as saying:
“While our plans to push the boundaries of the UK’s carrier innovation are temporarily on hold, I am immensely proud of the ship’s company who have risen to the challenge of preparing for repairs while facing the short-term disappointment of a postponed deployment. Now that the initial engineering challenges have been overcome to allow us to sail, we will transit to Rosyth where we will continue to work hard with our industry partners in the dockyard to ensure the shaft is repaired as quickly as possible and return HMS Prince of Wales to the front line to continue her operations.”
While under repair, her autumn programme that included operating with F-35B Lightnings, MV-22 Osprey tiltrotors and drones off the Eastern Seaboard of the USA is currently being rescheduled for 2023.
In laymans terms exactly what went wrong.
Yes I’m still wondering. Did it actually hit anything or not, and if so what was it and what are they doing about it? Or was it a tech malfunction?
Why has sabotage not been ruled out?
I’m with you, seems odd. Perhaps striking something caused a part that was under engineered to fail, so a combination of both.
Through the grapevine rumours would suggest that some on here who at the time commented on the poor quality of Scottish workmanship may want to retract those comments.
But as of yet no official confirmation of anything so will avoid saying more till then.
Hi Daniele, Some of the comments in the Navy Lookout article written at the time seemed to suggest that they knew they had a problem even before they sailed but thought they could sort it out. Hence, the pictures of her leaving Portsmouth on one screw. If that is the case it suggests two things to me. One it was a problem that was developing over time as how else would they know they had a problem before they even sailed. Two they under estimated the extent of the problem. Up shot was when they tried to run both screws… Read more »
That was pretty clearly admitted by RN leadership, on the record, that they knew there was some kind of a problem.
Thank CR. All this escaped me. Explains quite a lot.
In this semi war time environment nothing is really going to be said about the readiness of any major assets.
I think we are going to have to get used to a very different flow of information from MOD and leakiness dropping which it thankfully had after the F35B-in-the-drink video silliness things had tightened up.
We will see numbers purchased being suppressed as well as only getting announcements on the new shiny purchases.
It will be a lot more like Cold War comms.
I’d hope for even more communication on shiny things. Major project procurement has been woeful, and that’s being kind. Reports on progress, not only of the projects themselves, but also how the procurement process is being rectified could help catch problems earlier.
It’s nuts if the only way major procurement defects can be held to account is to publicly broadcast progress, but it seems that first instinct of secrecy has served us very badly. We get to find out it’s five years behind schedule, billions have been wasted and this has only been made public because of leaks.
Still, “Timelines and estimated costs for the repairs to HMS PRINCE OF WALES have not yet been determined as investigations to establish the extent of the work required are still ongoing.” Evidently contrasts with HMS Illustrious setting off on her Global 1986 deployment from Portsmouth:- In 1986 she suffered a catastrophic gearbox failure which almost saw the end of the vessel’s naval career. Just starting out on her “fly the flag” around the globe trip, at about 23:30 whilst reaching full engine revs, the oil vapour surrounding the gearbox exploded causing a fire lasting well over four hours. At one… Read more »
The video gives a good explanation of what parts broke and has some great graphics.
https://youtu.be/K8amC7BLrXc
The bit that gets the drive shaft from the inside of the hull to the outside of the hull needs replaced among other bits.
I imagine while in dry dock they will check lots of other parts. The bill will come at the end of the works. Really they could do any number of maintenance
The Navy is being very coy answering that question. Either they ain’t sure so are waiting for the facts to be established or there is something they would rather not talk about…
Check out my answer to Daniele below.
Cheers CR
Err, the post to which I refer is actually above 🙄
as far as I’m aware this question hasn’t been answered. If you bought a new car and the gearbox went after 500 miles (even though it passed the PDI) was it’s failure due to:
the gearbox manufacturer (whoever made it pays)
the installation (BAE pay)
driver error (tax payer pays)
I’ve a feeling it won’t be this clear
i
While a car manufacturer may want to solve your problem this probably doesn’t apply to a class of 2 ships that have no future orders.
Still the MOD do try and claim back costs from the people that make the parts are at fault if they are defective. Often it’s unreported.
As far as I am aware, any warranty the MOD has against a company for a product is only valid for a year from acceptance.
If that’s still the case, then any incurred costs will be paid for by the MOD.
It is possible that something of this issue was known about for a while, in which case the MOD might be able to leverage some form of payment from whomever is responsible for producing the failed item(s).
BAe never pay – all the problems of the T45 are paid for by the taxpayer, regardless of whose fault it was. About time naval ships were “fixed price” contracts instead of “Cost Plus”.
While they’re faffing around with this issue is there any news yet on any additional defensive armaments for these carriers? Will they be getting RWS’s and the standard anti torpedo/missile decoys as installed on the RN shops? Do they even have the latter? Do the carriers have any type of sonar installed? Sorry, lots of questions. It’s Friday evening here in Sydney. 😆 Cracking T20 cricket match yesterday. I’ve never see 🏴 play so well. Buttler and Gales were superb in the chase. The 🇦🇺 TV commentators here like to point out that the 🏴 cricket team have 🇦🇺 coaching… Read more »
*ships… not shops!
*Sorry, Hales.
Is the NAFFI now the ops room?
My spell checker stuffed that up
NAAFI….
That’s okay, google corrected it for me too! Lol 😁
We guessed! Happy cricket watching.
And another 🇦🇺 coach Hayden is in charge of Pakistan 🇵🇰 too. They’re everywhere! 😁
😂😂😂 I’m having visions of them selling torpedo’s in the shop onboard.. Pack of walkers and a mars bar.. and a couple decoys, one topedo and a SAM. Put in on my tab hahahah..
Good to make you laugh Nicola… and now I think about it… all our wishes here are a bit like a shopping 🛒tab. Does Amazon UK do “defence online”? Lol. 😆
It’ll be a minor miracle if they get any aircraft, never mind improvements.
Estimate bill to MOD ????? ‘How much!’ And rising, slow the repairs down and spread the cost or sell a frigate to pay the bill.
I’d be a bit shocked if the budget didn’t include a figure for maintenance / accidents. It is to be expected.
You would have thought an estimate of the repair cost would be known by now.
having sailed the are extensively someone ran her aground. The rip tide is so strong she would need too many tugs to keep her from going against the hitting the moving sand and mud. Which is why she is damaged in shaft and one propeller.
Can’t help wondering if the days of big aircraft carriers are over. Hypersonic missile could remove one instantly without warning.
Short answer to that is No on both counts.
Short answer. No one knows.
Poor QC during construction and commisioning, give the bill to the shipyard.
Might be a design fault or maybe some form of damage / collision
Based on well informed rumours, your latter point is close to the truth and Bill is most likely very confident but very wrong…
It is very hard to know unless you can pop in and have a look at the damage. The initial causation damage was probably very minor and easy to fix. The decision to run her on both screws is very likely to have made the damage worse. We know that there were techs on board who specialised in the IEP end of the system as that was the suspected issue. And it is likely they were testing those parameters. The question is during that testing what then mechanically happened. Who authorised the test and on what protocol? That is the… Read more »
We should sell it and buy a few royal yachts
First reported in these pages on 29 Aug and quick inspection carried out when ‘down South’, using divers. Now in Rosyth drydock. How long does it take to work out what has failed and how it failed, and what rectifiction work is thus required?
Are the best engineers on the job, or not?
Still waiting for a mechanic to come out to kick the propeller, suck on his teeth gutting, and shake his head.
New props could have been made by now. New prop shafts could have been made by now. Couplings could have been made by now. Bearings, gaskets All plural as you can see folks, could/would/should have been made by now. How do I know… I used to machine props, from hanging the prop onto a faceplate, bolting it on with a ring clamp, turning the boss to length, boring it out, tapering it out, putting in the keyway. I used to machine prop shafts, I used to machine couplings. (Very nice, interesting material bronze is to machine) My point is that… Read more »
As you say, it can be straightforward for professionals to duplicate the existing props and shafts, but there’s no point duplicating a bad design.
Key ways in propellers? Not on warship props, maybe fishing and please craft.
I’d be impressed if those props could be made that fast.
BTW the blades are bolted on separately to the core anyway….
https://www.marinelink.com/news/rollsroyce-elizabeth333920
There is a lot more to making very big props like QEC than the ones that used to be cast in Portsmouth dockyard in the workshops!
Nowadays they are yes. I worked for one of the company’s who developed those props.
Gee thanks mr expert… not. You go tell the US coast Guard who (with others) I helped in making 5 sets of 6ft diameter props, shafts and couplings for.
Tell them they have ‘fishing boats’ and only pleasure boats, and that there are no keys or keyways on their stern gear!
Decency and CBA prevents me from truly replying to the garbage you have typed. From what you are saying, you clearly have no knowledge of marine engineering.
You might need a bigger lathe…🤔
I’m guessing the lead time on one of these might be more than a weekend.
Nah I could make that in my shed in an afternoon😂😂😂
They are made far quicker now with CNC machines. And yes, I have worked on a lathe that size 🙂
Props, shaft, coupling already on the jetty, I was sat having a tab on them the other day. This is not the issue. The investigation is still ongoing to determine if the failure was a result of manufacturing faults.
They will not replace potentially faulty components until they can be sure what the causation was.
Why not? Does it need a new propshaft now? Will it still need a new propshaft after they’ve figured out the cause? It’s not like the three other examples aren’t working. The sister ship is doing just fine, and there’s every chance a direct replacement fix will last for years. Let the forensic discussions on the reasons be debated in parallel. Is it better there’s a good chance of the ship working or no chance, because engineers are still sitting on their thumbs? As long as the ship doesn’t go to war with the original fault still undiagnosed, what’s the… Read more »
Thats all well and good Jonny, but surely the issue here why are things taking so long?
I can take a week at least just to get the ship into the dry dock, line up blocks, pump out water.
I spoke to a retired commercial shipyard worker and he said it will be a month minimum and that would be in they had the parts all ready.
Hi MS… I thought all that was done already. My real issue is, why are things taking so long? It makes the UK look very poor.
Well it would appear that POW is now in the basin at Rosyth (happy to be corrected here as this was just from a cursory glance at the webcam next to the Queensferry bridge, see image below ) having been shown on AIS tracking to be out in the Estuary yesterday. BTW this is all open-source info so nothing secret. I’m not an expert on such mattters but I’m guessing the transfer from basin to drydock would be done over the next month or so with POW’s’ engineering team, Rosyth (Babcock) and Rolls Royce will be carrying out the repair… Read more »
Actually, looking at the position of the ship, it looks like the ship is going straight into the drydock tonight/tomorrow.
Ship is in dry dock, has been for weeks
I’d hope that she wasmoved straight into the dry dock next week TBH.
I suspect that budget overspend will delay repairs not the ability
Has anyone from the MOD/Government or Navy disclosed exactly what was wrong?
Wow – lucky to get the fabulous scenery of Rosyth instead of a jaunt to the US? Scotland is not Jack’s favourite drafting option…
As for the shaft, they must have dinged something to cause such damage.
The biq question is why don’t they know how long to fix it and how much it would cost? A Korean shipyard would give them an answer within 24 hours (and about 10% of Rosyth’s quote…)
Will the same malfunction affect its sister carrier or is it a one off
I’m hearing the problems are down to a huge design fault with the propulsion systems, obviously affecting both vessels. Johnson and Mercury have now been invited to tender to provide two gigantic outboards for them both.
Any news from Rosyth?
‘The navigation team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) used the metric system of millimeters and meters in its calculations, while Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Denver, Colorado, which designed and built the spacecraft, provided crucial acceleration data in the English system of inches, feet, and pounds. . In a sense, the spacecraft was lost in translation’.
Let’s hope the cooks aren’t over-doing the roast beef..
Well at least she is in good company, most of the type 45 destroyers are also out of service and in dock for various reasons. Just what is wrong with our procurement system in that along with the Ajax we end up, after spending billions with kit that is not fit for purpose.