United Kingdom (Commonwealth Union)_The Royal Navy carrier HMS Prince of Wales saw its departure postponed at the last minute after it was due to replace its sister ship, HMS Queen Elizabeth, on the largest Nato training exercise since the Cold War.
About 20 minutes after the Prince of Wales was due to depart, the hundreds of people who were lining the walls of Portsmouth Harbour began to disperse as word spread that the 65,000-tonne warship was not leaving after all, with one member of the public reported by the PA news agency as saying: “I hope it hasn’t broken down again.”
A propeller shaft issue discovered by “routine pre-sailing checks” forced the Queen Elizabeth to abandon its planned departure last week, around midday on Sunday, with the Prince of Wales drafted in to take its place and due to set sail from Portsmouth Naval Base .
But despite Ministry of Defence police boats securing the area and closing the harbour mouth to traffic, as is regular protocol for the departure of a carrier, the channel was re-opened and the £3bn vessel failed to leave the jetty.
No reason was given for the last-minute postponement of the sailing.
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Sunday’s setback comes 18 months after HMS Prince of Wales broke down off the Isle of Wight, when it suffered a malfunction with a coupling on its starboard propeller, and only one week after the Queen Elizabeth was discovered to have a separate issue with its own starboard propeller.
Admiral Lord Alan West, the former First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, said he was unsure as to why the latest delay had happened.
Lord West explained that corrosion had been discovered on HMS Queen Elizabeth‘s starboard propeller coupling – an issue which he estimated could take the vessel out of action for two and a half months.
He added that it was not rust because this was tensile steel underwater, so it could not rust, but was some form of corrosion. He said it proved how important it was to have two aircraft carriers, because the Prince of Wales was just sliding smoothly into the task that the Queen Elizabeth was going to do.
But with the Prince of Wales suffering its as yet unexplained cancelled departure on Sunday, it was unclear whether the Royal Navy will in fact take part in scheduled Nato exercise, involving approximately 40 vessels and due to take place off Norway’s Arctic coast in March.
It raises further questions about the Royal Navy’s ability to deploy an aircraft carrier to the Red Sea amid the continuing threat posed by the Houthi rebels, which Armed Forces minister James Heappey had suggested prior to HMS Queen Elizabeth, was being considered.
Lord West said it was a “great shame” that a carrier had not been already sent to the Red Sea as it would be “much more capable of doing what’s required of our assets out there”, but suggested HMS Prince of Wales could be redirected if deemed necessary by the Government or requested by the UK’s allies in the region.
“If the Government said ‘actually, we in fact want to have an aircraft carrier in the Red Sea’, you could not do the exercise and instead go to the Red Sea, because obviously real-life operations become more important,” he said, adding: “To my mind that takes priority over being the flagship of a Nato exercise.
He said he was afraid there were some people in the military who rather liked doing exercises and forget that they were there for the real business of protecting their people and killing those who tried to kill them.
Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Andrew Burns who addressed the cancelled departure of HMS Queen Elizabeth last week, said: “Routine pre-sailing checks identified an issue with a coupling on HMS Queen Elizabeth’s starboard propeller shaft. As such, the ship will not sail on Sunday 4th February.
He continued that HMS Prince of Wales will take her place on Nato duties and set sail for Exercise Steadfast Defender as soon as possible.
Lord West previously had told i that the Government “should be embarrassed” by the state of Britain’s Armed Forces, reiterating calls for increased defence spending amid fears that the UK was losing its military “clout”.
The Royal Navy spokesman added that HMS Queen Elizabeth would sail for Rosyth in Fife, Scotland after initial investigations were complete so that any necessary further repairs could be “carried out in due course”.
The Ministry of Defence has not confirmed if HMS Prince of Wales is set to take over all of its sister ship’s scheduled duties in the meantime, which would include taking part in the annual Joint Warrior Exercise off northern Scotland. An MoD spokesman said that the issue on HMS Queen Elizabeth was “separate and not linked” to the earlier defect on its sister ship, adding that the issue identified was with the ship’s shaft couplings.
