Britain's new 3 billion pound warship has a leak

[webfact]

Britain's new 3 billion pound warship has a leak

 

The Royal Navy's aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth is docked the day it was commissioned by Britain's Queen Elizabeth in Portsmouth, December 7, 2017. PO(Phot) Si Ethell/Royal Navy handout via REUTERS

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's biggest ever warship, the new 3.1 billion pound ($4.2 billion) aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, has a leak and needs repairs, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said on Tuesday.

 

The 65,000-tonne ship, hailed as Britain's most advanced military vessel and which was only officially commissioned by the queen two weeks ago, has an issue with a shaft seal which was identified during sea trials, the MoD said.

 

"This is scheduled for repair while she is alongside at Portsmouth," a Royal Navy spokesman said. "It does not prevent her from sailing again and her sea trials programme will not be affected."

 

The Sun newspaper reported that the 280-metre (920-foot) warship was letting in 200 litres of water every hour and the fix would cost millions of pounds.

 

A defence source said the navy was aware the ship, which took eight years to build, had an issue when it was handed over by manufacturers and the Sun said the builders would have to foot the repair bill.

 

The Aircraft Carrier Alliance - a consortium including British engineering companies BAE Systems and Babcock, and the UK division of France's Thales - built the Queen Elizabeth and its sister aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, as apart of a 6.2 billion pound project.

No one from the Aircraft Carrier Alliance was immediately available for comment.

 

"Every ship takes on water. That's why you have pumps," Chris Parry, former senior Royal Navy officer told Sky News.

 

"When you get a brand new car not everything's perfect, you have to send it back to the garage to get a few things tweaked. This is exactly in that bracket."

 

On Tuesday, parliament's defence committee raised questions about the procurement of the F-35 fighter jets from a consortium led by Lockheed Martin which will eventually operate from the Queen Elizabeth.

 

The committee said there had been an "unacceptable lack of transparency" about the programme and the MoD had failed to provide details of the full cost of each aircraft which one newspaper had estimated could be as much as 155 million pounds.

 

"Our new aircraft carrier is the epitome of British design and dexterity, at the core of our efforts to build an Armed Forces fit for the future," British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said at the Queen Elizabeth's commissioning.

 

($1 = 0.7470 pounds)

 

(Reporting by Michael Holden, Paul Sandle and James Davey; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-12-19

[NanLaew]

Shaft seal replacement used to be a major, dry-docking job but pretty sure the newer technologies employed makes this far less onerous. The guesstimated rice tag is just that.

 

To put this in context, the 200 liters/hour is the equivalent to about 30 toilets being flushed, or just one toilet being flushed every couple of minutes.

 

Not going to sink, sorry.

[ExpatOilWorker]

12 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

Shaft seal replacement used to be a major, dry-docking job but pretty sure the newer technologies employed makes this far less onerous. The guesstimated rice tag is just that.

 

To put this in context, the 200 liters/hour is the equivalent to about 30 toilets being flushed, or just one toilet being flushed every couple of minutes.

 

Not going to sink, sorry.

Once the fire up the 48,000 HP RR turbines, they will burn 12,000 liters of fuel per hour. The 200 liter is nothing but an embarrassing drop.

[tomacht8]

200 liters an hour is nothing. the installation of a small permanent submersible pump is enough. maybe welding in a few more planks and the kitchen could keep fresh sea fish there.

[robblok]

*made in Britain*  I was told that stood for quality 

[phutoie2]

Shouldn't cost anything, its under warranty. So said the ex Admiralty fish head on R4 this morn, plus informing the airhead interviewer that all ships leak.

[quadperfect]

35 minutes ago, phutoie2 said:

Shouldn't cost anything, its under warranty. So said the ex Admiralty fish head on R4 this morn, plus informing the airhead interviewer that all ships leak.

And all new cars need tweaking. What a comment. I have never had a new car go back to the shop for tweaking. But i have had my boat leak .

 

[lemonjelly]

That’s less than the average hose pipe gives out.....


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

[OJAS]

Can you imagine the field day which the Thai bashing brigade on here would have had if we had been talking about a new leaky Royal Thai Navy aircraft carrier instead?!!

[punchjudy]

just wait until they take her out in warm water......the engines will grind to a halt.

[tomacht8]

Let's see how much water penetrates when the whole boat is fully loaded. With planes, fuel, provisions and crew.

[Andaman Al]

Always remember in defence that the equipment you take to war was made by the lowest bidder. 

[Basil B]

12 hours ago, NanLaew said:

To put this in context, the 200 liters/hour is the equivalent to about 30 toilets being flushed, or just one toilet being flushed every couple of minutes.

Yes, about 3.5Ltrs a minute, not exactly going to put overload the smallest of bilge pumps, bet the bilge pumps are pumping out a hell lot more water the result of condensation...

 

as for the seals, yes I would have thought they would have a way to change them without dry docking, possibly even at sea.

[phutoie2]

11 hours ago, OJAS said:

Can you imagine the field day which the Thai bashing brigade on here would have had if we had been talking about a new leaky Royal Thai Navy aircraft carrier instead?!!

Steady on that bar stool. Its all being saved till the Chinese subs  arrive.

[RuamRudy]

11 hours ago, tomacht8 said:

Let's see how much water penetrates when the whole boat is fully loaded. With planes, fuel, provisions and crew.

Well, at least they have several years to wait until the planes are ready...

[artisans]

I have been involved in may gland packing operations in the early 70’s.

A relativly simple job and done a quay side. My boss and the local ship yard 

worked out a very simple and cheap way of stopping the water coming up the shaft as they changed packing. We dove down with a longish roll of neoprene 

wraped it around the hub and shaft, the water pressure did the rest, propably about an hour to re & re this blanket. 

[thaibeachlovers]

17 hours ago, robblok said:

*made in Britain*  I was told that stood for quality 

Britain still make things?

How the mighty nation that started the industrial revolution has fallen, with nothing but abandoned and derelict factories to show for it.

 

However, a shaft seal is a nothing. It's not like something serious was leaking. Every ship has things to sort when constructed, just as long as the builders pay.

 

The real farce is that they built a ship that requires the fiasco that is the atrocious, overpriced F35 to operate, and the real tragedy of the whole disaster is that Britain isn't capable of making their own plane to put on it. Seems that Britain's leaders are not just incompetent, but outright detrimental to the British.

 

Anyway, large aircraft carriers are just a very expensive target now, and would probably last the time it takes for a missile to reach them after war was declared. America at least uses them to project power around the world, as it actually has power, much in the way that Britain used gunboats in the days of Pax Britannica.

Britain, on the other hand, is just a second rate power with nothing to project anywhere, having given away their empire for nothing back.

They'd have been better off building a better, if smaller, navy with the money.

[tifino]

They need funds...

Luckily this time of the year; they can go fund: 

 

By Selling Calendars...

 

if not,

then they can go on...

Sailing Collanders 

 

[gamini]

6 hours ago, Basil B said:

Yes, about 3.5Ltrs a minute, not exactly going to put overload the smallest of bilge pumps, bet the bilge pumps are pumping out a hell lot more water the result of condensation...

 

as for the seals, yes I would have thought they would have a way to change them without dry docking, possibly even at sea.

I have changed dozens of seals underwater in Singapore even on bigger ships than this aircraft carrier. it is no big deal.

[Gulfsailor]

18 hours ago, quadperfect said:

And all new cars need tweaking. What a comment. I have never had a new car go back to the shop for tweaking. But i have had my boat leak .

 

The comment is very valid for English, American and Italian cars.

[BernieOnTour]

21 hours ago, webfact said:

"When you get a brand new car not everything's perfect, you have to send it back to the garage to get a few things tweaked. This is exactly in that bracket."

No wonder that the famous British car industry (of years long gone) has gone downhill ... ;-)

[lvr181]

20 hours ago, quadperfect said:

And all new cars need tweaking. What a comment. I have never had a new car go back to the shop for tweaking. But i have had my boat leak .

 

Yup, I had a leak in my boat also.

 

Too much beer I think....................... 

[connda]

It seem Western contractors have adopted the old saying, "Hey, this is good enough for government work." 

[Retiredandhappyhere]

On 12/19/2017 at 6:28 PM, OJAS said:

Can you imagine the field day which the Thai bashing brigade on here would have had if we had been talking about a new leaky Royal Thai Navy aircraft carrier instead?!!

Have you seen the Thai submarine lately?

[Keira1]

The Swedish ship Wasa sank on its maiden voyage after sailing a very short distance, in 1628. It's now one of the biggest tourist attraction in Stockholm "Wasa museum"... Was one of this super ships of the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)

[lvr181]

8 hours ago, Retiredandhappyhere said:

Have you seen the Thai submarine lately?

Oh no? Leaked and sunk?   hehehe...........

[johnarth]

On 12/19/2017 at 4:38 PM, robblok said:

*made in Britain*  I was told that stood for quality 

ha but there is also a French firm involved 

[thaibeachlovers]

17 minutes ago, johnarth said:

ha but there is also a French firm involved 

So?

They have been running a large and apparently trouble free nuclear power industry for decades, unlike the other countries with nuclear power plants.

[Tug]

She needs a shaft wrap cofferdam Iv installed several dozen over the years on carriers about 12 hrs dive time no big deal

[johna]

The shaft seal is lubricated with oil to decrease wear, with 200 litres of water pouring in that obviously is not happening. as the shaft rotates wear on the seal increases and the leak grows progressively worse. As an example, a Marsk container ship had a leaking stern thruster seal that catastrophically failed, flooding the shaft tunnel, before the watertight door to the engine room could be closed the engine room flooded causing over a million $ of damages and the ship out of service for several months.

It's an embarrassment' Britain's major warships all DOCKED at Portsmout

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/894744/Britain-Royal-Navy-warships-destroyer-frigate-all-docked-Portsmouth