UK nuclear submarine collides with merchant vessel

[Graham Kennedy]

Source

One of the UK's newest nuclear-powered submarines has docked in Gibraltar after a "collision" with a merchant vessel during a training exercise.
The Royal Navy said it has launched an immediate investigation after HMS Ambush was involved in the "glancing collision" while submerged off the coast of the British territory.

There is "some external damage" but no crew members were injured, it added.

The Astute-class attack submarine's nuclear reactor was undamaged.

In a statement on the Ministry of Defence website, the Navy said the incident took place at approximately 13:30 local time on Tuesday.

Hmm, could have been way worse. Thankful that everyone is safe. That's gonna need some buffing out, though! And can't you just hear the sound of a few Navy careers going down the toilet...?

[Coalition]

"Sonar, where is that merchant vessel, we need to steer clear of it."

"Not sure Captain, it sounds like it is all around us, I'll try to listen for more."

CLONG!

"Found it."

[Graham Kennedy]

I saw a documentary set on the UK's Perisher course, which is the pass/fail for command of a submarine. Meant to be the best and most demanding course of its kind in the world. Fascinating stuff. One of the things they do in the course is put the candidate in situations where he is deluged with information - from sonar, from radar, from the periscope, a stream of updates so rapidly and from so many different targets that it is literally impossible for one person to keep up with it. It is apparently very easy to lose your bearings in such a situation and start to think that ships are where they are not, or lose their relationship to yourself or even what your boat is doing.

Given that the seas around Gibraltar are quite busy, gateway to the Med and all, I'd think it was probably something along those lines.

I hope it's not too expensive to fix up.

[Mikey]

Who cares about that? What kind of merchant ship can get rammed by a sub (the article said submerged, so ostensibly the ship got hit below the waterline) and sustain less damage than the sub? Whoever laid that keel, that's who you guys should get to build your subs!

[Captain Seafort]

Who cares about that? What kind of merchant ship can get rammed by a sub (the article said submerged, so ostensibly the ship got hit below the waterline) and sustain less damage than the sub?

Pretty much any of them. Look at the photo - the impact was on the fin, which is very lightly built, and only really there to store the periscopes/electronic kit when not in use and to give the OOW somewhere to stand while surfaced.