Well, shiver my stealth technology cladded timbers.
This submarine incident in or rather adjacent to the Isle of Skye in the Highlands of Scotland, or Scotlandland as George Dubya called it, seems not to be going away.
In summary a brand new nuclear stealth submarine costing about one billion pounds sterling got stuck on some rocks near to the Skye Bridge.
The Royal Navy describes the vessel in glowing terms. "Astute class is the largest, most advanced and most formidable vessel of its kind ever operated by the Royal Navy. She incorporates the latest stealth technology combined with a world beating sonar system and equipped with Spearfish torpedoes and state of the art Tomahawk land attack missiles to make her a supremely effective naval asset."
Being a naturally superstitious maritime nation, it looks like the Duchess of Cornwall is off future launcher guest lists.
We have an ever-shrinking Royal Navy as witnessed in the new entente cordiale with our French neighbours. I think the deal was something like "If there's an 'r' in the month it's one of yours we land our planes on."
As expected from this island nation there's been endless theorising and advice about the Skye submarine fiasco.
Some of my favourites include:-
The submarine is very long
- It's about 100 metres long.
The submarine is very big
- Actually it's 7800 tonnes, about the same as 1,000 London buses.
The sea is very shallow there!
- There are charts
- Even the Royal Navy could follow channel markers.
At least there was non environmental impact. I do hate that word.
- actually there was an impact - the sub hit the rocks.
The embarrassing fact is that the submarine managed to ground it's stern in a manoeuvre in which they were allegedly letting some crew off the vessel. Perhaps they were foraging for wild mushrooms to add to the recipe for the evening's supper. Goodness knows what they were up to.
The manoeuvre in question looks and sounds more like something from a canal holiday in a 70 foot narrowboat.
Matters have got even worse today, when it emerged that the tug boat that helped to free the unfortunately named HMS Astute managed to damage one of the submarine's foreplanes. - Oops! Expensive.
Somebody has to take responsibility for this embarrassing accident and it looks like the chance of the commanding officer, currently only a commander of becoming a flag officer is now minimal. In summary, no progression to admiral rank and no knighthood.
Never mind the official enquiry. If he's going home I'd advise the insertion of a cricket box.
On the other hand his wife may just be a good old-fashioned socialist who doesn't believe in all these titles. like Mrs, now Lady Prescott.
As a final note, the Coast Guard tugs, like the one that helped out here are going to be removed from service as part of the government's austerity measures.
It's unlikely that the Royal Navy will be able to get itself out of trouble in the future, shrunken as it is.
There is hope. Many passed-over naval officers can get a job as a bursar in the public schools of our glorious land.
surely you can't cause any damage with a Biro. Well.....
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