HMS Sceptre (S104)

The fifth HMS "Sceptre" (S104) is a "Swiftsure"-class submarine built by Vickers in Barrow-in-Furness. She was commissioned on February 14, 1978, by Lady Audrey White. She was the tenth nuclear fleet submarine to enter service with the Royal Navy. As of 2008 she is the oldest commissioned vessel in the Royal Navy (with the notable exception of HMS Victory).

"Sceptre" suffered several accidents. In the early 1980s she collided with a Russian submarine and her reactor's protection systems would have performed an automatic emergency shutdown (scrammed the reactor), but her captain ordered the safety mechanisms overridden (battleshort enabled). The crew were told to say that they had hit an iceberg. This incident was disclosed when David Forghan, former Weapons Officer on the submarine, gave a television interview that was broadcast on September 19, 1991.

In 1987, "Sceptre" was fitted with an improved reactor core (Core Z). In March 1990, there was a coolant leak while "Sceptre" was at Devonport. On October 20, 1991, there was a fire onboard while the boat was moored at Faslane. In August 1995 "Sceptre" was forced to abort her patrol and return to Faslane after suffering, in the words of the Ministry of Defence, "an unspecified fault in the propulsion system." A defect in "Sceptre's" reactor was discovered in 1998, though its seriousness was not appreciated until after the investigation of another serious accident.

On March 6, 2000, "Sceptre" suffered a serious accident while inside a drydock at the Rosyth yards while undergoing trials towards the end of a major refit. The test involved flooding the drydock, and running the main engines slowly with steam supplied from the shore. However, too much steam was used and the engines went to full speed. "Sceptre" broke her moorings and shot forward off the cradle she rested on. The steam line ruptured, scaffolding buckled, a crane was pushed forward some 15 feet, and the submarine moved forward some 30 feet inside the dock.

The investigation into the runaway also looked at "Sceptre"’s reactor problems, and recommended that the boat be scrapped. In January 2002, with "Sceptre" still laid up, Defence Minister Adam Ingram declared that the problem was "small original fabrication imperfections" in the reactor pressure vessel. He could not say how long it would take to inspect and repair the problem. In December 2003, " Sceptre" was accepted back into the Fleet after rigorous sea-trials.

On 3 February 2005 "Sceptre" put in at Gibraltar for repairs, expecting to leave within six days. British officials assured Spanish officials that damage is in the cooling system of the boat's diesel generator, not to the nuclear propulsion system. ("Tireless" (S88) spent much of 2000 at Gibraltar repairing a leak in her reactor coolant system.) Nonetheless Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos registered Spain’s "firm protest" with Jack Straw, and insisted that "Sceptre" be the last British submarine repaired at Gibraltar. In addition, Peter Caruana, Gibraltar's Chief Minister, claimed that he had been misinformed about the repairs by the British Ministry of Defence, and that he had learned the true extent of the problems from Spanish sources. Apparently London officials had told him that the repairs were all external, neglecting to mention the diesel generator's cooling system. On 7 February 2005, British military spokeswoman Katherine Purdhoe announced that repairs had been completed; the boat left Gibraltar on 9 February.

Affiliations

*Scots Guards
*Yorkshire University Royal Naval Unit (YURNU)