. . . the HMS Astute wouldn’t have any luck at all. Remember when she ran aground two weeks ago? Well, apparently the grounding wasn’t the worst part of ordeal.
HMS Hapless: submarine in crash No2 with tug
An investigation was already being held into the grounding of HMS Astute on a shingle bank off Skye last month after the £1 billion vessel, whose key attribute is stealth, was turned into a tourist attraction.
Now a new inquiry is underway after it was revealed that having survived the incident relatively unscathed, the submarine was damaged in a collision with the tug boat hired to free it.
The Anglian Prince was contracted by the navy to help pull the sub to safety.
But during the operation the towing rope became caught in the tug’s propeller and pulled the vessels together, damaging the Astute’s starboard foreplane.
A navy spokesman said the sub will be repaired at Faslane and trials will resume in due course.
He added: “The inquiry into the damage sustained by Astute is now complete, although the findings have still to be released to naval officers.”
The Anglian Prince, based in Stornoway, is normally under contract to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, but the Ministry of Defence took over its operation temporarily to help Astute.
It was undamaged despite the tangle with a nuclear submarine and is back in Stornoway, having since helped a cargo boat which got into difficulty off Rum this week.
See also:
Stricken Sub Astute Damaged By Rescue Tug
U.K.’s Stricken Nuclear Submarine HMS Astute Collided With Rescue Vessel
Revealed: Rescue tug crashed into stranded submarine HMS Astute causing millions of pounds of damage
Tug damaged HMS Astute while freeing it
Astute damaged in tug collision
HMS Astute submarine damaged by towboat
Stranded British submarine damaged in tug collision: navy
Call for debate on scrap-threat coastguard tug
Not So Astute
Thirty year old tugboat 1, brand new, multi-billion dollar nuclear submarine 0, talk about adding insult to injury, what an indignity. The Astute seems to be jinxed.
/maybe they should just scrap the Astute and put the Anglian Prince into active naval service, the tugboat has a better anti-submarine warfare record
Filed under: Blog Entry | Tagged: Anglian Prince, Astute, British Royal Navy, Cargo Boat, Collision, Crash, Damage, Faslane, Findings, Foreplane, Grounding, HMS Astute, HMS Hapless, Incident, Inquiry, Investigation, Maritime And Coastguard Agency, Ministry Of Defence, Naval Officers, Navy Spokesman, Nuclear Submarine, Propeller, Repaired, Royal Navy, Rum, Skye, Starboard Foreplane, Stealth, Stornoway, Sub, Submarine, Tourist Attraction, Towing Rope, Tug, Tugboat, Undamaged, Vessels | Leave a comment »
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