After arriving on 8th April, HMS Queen Elizabeth has completed her dry dock inspection and today left Rosyth to return to Portsmouth for a period of sea trials and training in preparation for her Westlant19 deployment.
The ship has spent the last six weeks in Rosyth where around 100 workers replaced 284 hull valves while both rudder blades were removed and cleaned, sea inlet pipes were inspected, all sacrificial anodes were replaced, and the anti-fouling paint was renewed. Both anchors and cables were also laid out in the dock for inspection. The inspections were a mandatory requirement to maintain her Lloyds rules certification and its successful completion should mean she will not need to be dry docked for another six years.
Marine Engineering Officer, Cdr Mark Hamilton said: “It’s the first time that such a short docking period has taken place with a Royal Navy ship of this size. It’s a real testament to the great working relationship forged between the MOD and industry to make this such a success. We’ll now carry the concept forwards to future docking periods, as well as to those of our sister ship HMS Prince of Wales”. The project was completed on time after the ship entered dry dock ahead of schedule, despite an initial delay to entering the basin because of bad weather.
Captain Nick Cooke-Priest remains in command of HMS Queen Elizabeth for the journey to Portsmouth but is being relieved prematurely as punishment for the misuse of an official car. Captain Steve Moorhouse, the current CO of HMS Prince of Wales, will take charge of the ship on 28th May. Captain Darren Houston, the former Executive Officer of QE will take over as CO of HMS Prince of Wales.
The RN leadership has taken considerable flack in the media, and even from its own advocates, over the difficult decision to take disciplinary action against Captain Cooke-Priest. The chairman of the Commons Defence Committee even questioned the new Defence Secretary in Parliament about the Navy’s decision. The minister quite rightly replied, “it is a matter for the Royal Navy”. Reliable sources say that there is no sinister alternative motive and the Service must handle misdeeds by senior officers in the same way it would treat junior personnel. If the RN had swept the issue under the carpet and it had later been discovered, there would have been similar howls of criticism – a case of ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’. There is no suggestion of deliberate fraud on the part of Captain Cooke-Priest who retains his rank and a job in the Navy, where there is considerable personal sympathy for an officer with an otherwise fine record.
(Subsequent to publishing this article, the RN decided to relieve Capt Cooke-Priest immediately and the XO, Capt Houston has taken over for the journey south to Portsmouth. After remaining at anchor in the Forth during 22nd May, she passed under the Forth Bridges just after midday on 23rd May)
Great picture of the 2 carriers at the top of the page.
I would love to see a 3rd, but I’m starting to delve into the realms of fantasy.
Yes, a new Ark Royal, with cats & traps.
Would make a lovely USS Robin.
Has Hms Qe only received 2 phalanx?
Yes. Two Phalanx fitted for far, with 3rd (Port forward mount) due to be fitted at later date, along with 30mm cannons. Slow – incremental progress but she is not operational until end 2020.
Is there any indication on why only 2 fitted, would seem more cost effective to fit all 3 at the same time and test them together as an integrated defence layer. I wonder if this is an indication that we are lacking the platform numbers and don’t have any spare in storage.
50 upgrade kits to Block 1B BL2 were authorised last year. They are probably being upgraded one-by-one.
I know that one of the designs had the angled deck and looking at a top view of the ship you can see where it would have gone. I’m wondering how much/easy it would be to re-integrate this on the current design with the thought of adding some arrestor wires and a barrier. I’m not looking at introducing cats (which would have been great), but how the current design will cope with emergency landings from either the F35s or another Nations carrier aircraft. The deck area is massive and would be the obvious choice for an aircraft in difficulties to look at making an emergency landing. But I don’t think she has the capability to act as an emergency airfield? Can anyone shed any light if there’s future plans to introduce at least a barrier?
Yes I’m hoping that this could be built in to her on her next refit. Maybe useful for drone operations as well as emergency landing space for friendly ac seeking to divert.
There is space for cats and traps and installing a angle deck is fairly straight forward as most of the support for the deck is already there.
When Cameron in rare fit of clarity said he wanted the F35C he was stopped by the treasury inventing the cost of conversion of being £1 billion plus when both BAe and Lockheed quoted £400 million for the QE and 200 million for the PoW .
A missed opportunity to actually make effective use of that huge deck.
It was more to do with EMALS and AAG being the CAToBAR system, it was years behind in development at that time, still with some probs. It is highly unlikely that the QE class carriers will to be converted before 2030. More likely about 2035 in time for a naval Tempest!
Let’s hope a third carrier is built . . won’t be for RN but a half-sister built for Indian Navy would be a nice parts and knowledge transfer for UK industry. The rumour is the Indian’s are interested in CVF as the basis for a CATOBAR 65k tonne class carrier.
Sounds great ? afterall they got decades of more service out of HMS Hermes and I know the Russian Carrier had major issues, some nice after purchase support with a CVF would be very welcome as well as a boon to Diplomatic relations
If I mounted an FIM 92 J launcher to a canal boat….would it classify said boat as a Guided Missile Canal Boat??? ?? or would I need a Radar Guided Missile for that???
Why replace (not refitted) so many UW valves (284) – Speed? v Cost?
What about leaking Shaft seals? repairs/replacement.
What about Lloyds Rules/Certification – What LR rules applies to a RN Vessel?
UW will all have been replaced in accordance with LR certification procedure. Will likely be refurbished and reused.
Stern seal was fixed at the time and was in part over hyped by media with an axe to grind.