iv Submarine Town supplement, July 2007
Astute has star quality
A LAUNCH without a thunderous rattle of chains and
a hull plunging into water runs the risk of being an anti-
climax.
But when a shipyard engineers a precision piece of machinery
of mind-boggling complexity such as Astute, the risk of anti-
climax is preferable to the risk of unnatural stresses on a metal
tube which will be home to
just under 100 men.
MIKE GRAY reports
Instead, BAE Systems sought from the BAE
to mark the ‘launch’ of the first
in a new generation of attack
Systems shipyard at
submarine with subtlety. Barrow-in-Furness.
The 7,400-tonne sleek black
“super sub” (as dubbed by some Devonshire Dock on a ‘synchrolift’
sectors of the media) made what of 106 electric winches was even
will probably be the slowest slower than the roll-out – at a rate
passage of her life from the gloom of around 200mm per hour.
of the massive Devonshire Dock Then she was moved with the
Hall into the fierce sunshine of a help of two small tugs (apparently
summer’s day in Barrow. known as the ‘pushycats’) a few
Her stately progress into the metres round to the Wet Dock
limelight, at around a metre a Quay, where further trials will be
minute on a cradle of 52 railway carried out before she makes her
cars, was a small price to pay on maiden voyage.
the big day.
She was, after all, a year or
She will get the chance to
three later than was originally
go through a ‘dive’ at the
envisaged, and way over the
end of the summer, using
original cost estimates – though
a 24-metre deep ‘dive hole’
since the project was renegotiated
at the end of the ship lift to
in 2003 it has become a model of
submerge all but the top of
rectitude.
her fi n.
The costs of the class soared, Her first Commanding Officer,
the bill bloated by technological Cdr Mike Walliker, is looking
challenges. forward to seeing what the boat
But the revised project, under the can do.
care of BAE Systems Submarine “This is a fantastic day today,”
Solutions Managing Director he said.
Murray Easton, focused minds all “We are not taking delivery of
round, and the Barrow yard, which her today, but it is the start of the
has been turning out submarines process.
for well over 100 years, has since “Personally for me, and for my
embraced engineering techniques ship’s company, it is a tremendous
and processes which stuck to occasion.”
agreed timescales and budgets. The day had a special
There was a palpable sense significance for another Naval
of ownership and pride in the officer at the ceremony.
workshops and assembly hall as Submariner Capt Mike Davis-
modules were slotted into hull Marks, head of the Navy’s PR
sections of the boat, and the whole department, was second-in-
thing was welded together. command of the last T-boat to
And so, with work on Boat 4 now be launched in Barrow – HMS
officially under way (Audacious Triumph in early 1991.
will follow Ambush and Artful), And he was in charge of
it was a perfect opportunity for underwater capability on the
the historic industrial town at the Astute project itself for more than
end of the Furness peninsula in two years.
Cumbria to bask in the limelight. “Astute has more weapons, of a
And the big draw on the day wider mix, better communications
– other than S20 herself – was and you can do more with it,” said
the Duchess of Cornwall, who as Capt Davis-Marks.
sponsor pulled the lever to break “It has got better technology
a bottle of beer on the bow of the than the Trafalgar-class, and it is
submarine. quieter.”
At this point the VIPs met the The launch took part during
crowds, headed for lunch with Barrow’s Maritime Festival, which
400 invited guests, then went their also featured destroyer HMS
separate ways. Exeter, frigate HMS Lancaster
The thousands of onlookers and P2000 patrol boats HMS
dispersed, and Astute just crept on Biter and HMS Charger.
out of the shed, watched by a team All ships were open to the public
of engineers from the shipyard at various stages of their visits.
and a handful of others.
The whole process took more ● Fireworks mark the end of the
than three hours, after which a launch day for Astute, which can
long and rigorous series of checks be seen sitting on the ship lift
was carried out to ensure she was in front of the Devonshire Dock
ready for dunking. Hall (right)
The descent into the waters Picture: LA(Phot) JJ Massey
● HMS Astute is rolled out of the Devonshire Dock Hall and on to the BAE Systems ship lift at Barrow-in-Furness (above). The submarine was
‘launched’ by the Duchess of Cornwall (right) who broke a bottle of beer brewed by a yard worker on the new boat’s hull
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