Daydream believer
Well-Known Member
If that is the case, then how come such large container ships transit the N Sea & how come the Russian aircraft carrier went through the channel with a RN sub, sometimes right under it( or so they claimed)?
ColRegs & Submarines
- Thread starter Dulcinea East
- Start date
Leighb
Well-Known Member
The large container ships mostly have to stick to the well charted Deep Water routes. The approaches to Harwich/Felixstowe have to be dredged regularly and have had to be significantly deepened several times in recent years to accommodate the ever increasing size of these ships.
jwilson
Well-Known Member
Coming up into the Clyde in a sailing yacht somewhere off Arran under power in a glassy calm with the aft-hinged forehatch open, a nuclear sub came the other way rather faster than 12 knots. Slowed as we reached the very substantial bow-wave, but still got a lot of water in the forecabin, and all over the decks aft to the cockpit. No accompanying RIBS but it was a long time ago.
johnalison
Well-Known Member
Gosh. I hadn't thought of that.I think that is kind of the point of submarines - you don’t generally see them, even when passing close by you.
It’s only places like the Clyde where they are leaving or arriving their base that you actually see them.
zoidberg
Well-Known Member
Many years ago, bobbing about in the dark in a 'wounded' trimaran midway between two corners of Wales and one of Ireland, broken mast lashed on deck, both of us dozing while the kettle boiled, we were rudely awakened by a very large blacker-then-black shape circling around us. As the 'fight or flight' panic-adrenalin surge eased, we could make out it was a large submarine.I think that is kind of the point of submarines - you don’t generally see them, even when passing close by you.
It’s only places like the Clyde where they are leaving or arriving their base that you actually see them.
The watch was clearly concerned that we were in some difficulty, perhaps distress, and the question was 'how to communicate'. We didn't have a handheld VHF, and t'other antenna was attached to the mast-top - which was no longer attached to the boat's 'lecky. Now, we didn't want them to feel the need to launch a RIB with some matelots, not in the lumpy sea left over from an Irish Sea gale, but what to do?
Then we remembered our little red ensign, on its little wooden 'jackstaff' (?) on the stern. As this imposing huge black shape circled past our stern for the fourth time, I slowly lifted the flag-and-pole out of its socket, and ostentatiously 'dipped' it in the centuries-old acknowledgement.
That was enough. We weren't in distress. There was a violent thrashing of propeller - and HMS Torbay took off southwards like a bat out of hell into the dark....
Some time later, I penned a note of thanks on RWYC notepaper to the commander of the then-anonymous warship via the Commander, Second Submarine Flotilla at Plymouth, who would have known 'what, where, when', and we had a courteous letter back with a photograph of the boat.
Brit submariners are not all grumpy bugrs like some on here.....
AntarcticPilot
Well-Known Member
Because submarines operate underwater, and there's insufficient water for them to submerge. Nukes stay underwater except when leaving or returning from base.
Daydream believer
Well-Known Member
But you have missed the point. If there was insufficient water in the N sea how come a sub was able to make passage under the russian aircraft carrier in the N sea?
AntarcticPilot
Well-Known Member
Smaller conventional subs might do it. But not nukes.
Malish
Well-Known Member
Pre-1984, they serviced nuclear subs in Chatham - this is Valiant, the first one to be serviced
Egret
Well-Known Member
Valiant 8m draft beam 10m and height above water about 15m. Medway chart shows 6m at low tide - so it would have to come in at high tide and on the surface and creep very stealthily, otherwise you would see it coming.
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capnsensible
Well-Known Member
Chatham Dockyard shut down in March 1984. Previously, there were two docks in the nuclear refitting area. All of the UK first classes of submarine refitted there at least twice. I was on HMS/M Valiant before, during and after her second refit. The passage was made up the river like so many surface warships and auxiliary vessels before them without incident.
Conventional submarines have operated I the North Sea since before WW1. Some north European nations have submarines that as far as I know, still do. In some parts of the North Sea, an underwater look may be practical. The type of operation that Daydreamy mentions was almost certainly somewhere else? Unless he has a link.
A nuclear submarine will, for the most part, transit on the surface. I've been one such submarine that in different years visited Hamburg and Rotterdam.
At night whilst on the surface, the lights will show an unusual pattern with port and starboard lights high up either side of the fin. Low down right aft on the top rudder there is a sternlight. On top of the fin, behind the bridge is a steaming light and an all round flashing yellow. That's the big clue of the vessel type.
Hope this helps!
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
Correction to previous, Submarine Truculent sank after a collision with a merchant vessel in the approaches in 1950.
zoidberg
Well-Known Member
My near-neighbour had command of an SSN/SSGN, on two tours of duty. Sipping some port, or similar, with him in his TV lounge one Boxing Day a few years back, we watched the BBC News footage of the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov puffing its way down Channel.... with deep-sea tug in attendance.
"I once had Christmas Lunch in my wardroom, sitting underneath that..." he remarked by way of casual conversation....
"I once had Christmas Lunch in my wardroom, sitting underneath that..." he remarked by way of casual conversation....
johnalison
Well-Known Member
Admiral Kuznetsov sounds very impressive, until you realise that Kuznetsov is Russian for ‘Smith’.My near-neighbour had command of an SSN/SSGN, on two tours of duty. Sipping some port, or similar, with him in his TV lounge one Boxing Day a few years back, we watched the BBC News footage of the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov puffing its way down Channel.... with deep-sea tug in attendance.
"I once had Christmas Lunch in my wardroom, sitting underneath that..." he remarked by way of casual conversation....
[70521]
Well-Known Member
My experience of the 'men in black' in Plymouth waters is they are polite, but firm.I bet that changes if you quote colregs....
With a Heckler & Koch strapped to their leg and a carbine at their chest you don't quote colregs. Anyways in Plymouth Sound they are the stand on vessel.
Sailed through an exercise off the Eddystone a few years back and clearly the skipper was late for his supper as this surfaced sub headed north then moved a lot faster than I was expecting.
johnalison
Well-Known Member
I saw a video that I think showed a Swedish submarine outwitting some other nation's ability to detect it, probably the US. I imagine that its priority cruising ground would be the Baltic. The Germans had pens there in the last war, such as this one I saw a short cycle ride south of Swinoujscie. It was only a very short distance from here that they had to detonate a Tallboy that had failed to explode in the river, just a few years ago.
Blue Seas
Well-Known Member
Here is an 8-minute video (American) of one of our trips in 1977 - I was onboard so maybe I know your neighbour.My near-neighbour had command of an SSN/SSGN, on two tours of duty. Sipping some port, or similar, with him in his TV lounge one Boxing Day a few years back, we watched the BBC News footage of the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov puffing its way down Channel.... with deep-sea tug in attendance.
"I once had Christmas Lunch in my wardroom, sitting underneath that..." he remarked by way of casual conversation....