Botching our other nuclear fleet (Trident, vanguard class subs)

[Mr Gus]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... -with-glue

"Claims made that broken bolts on HMS Vanguard’s reactor chamber were stuck on instead of replaced"

That is some next level dngaf botching & risking lives potential from supposedly competent repair engineers holding multi-million pound maintenance contracts.

[Moxi]

Morning Mr Gus,

Nothing directly to do with Nuclear safety, the bolts they glued were for earth continuity straps on the general pipework.

The big stink arises from Babcock seemingly obfuscating their report and the Navy being embarrassed that they hadn't picked up on it before the Sun newspaper made a story from it.

Moxi

[Mr Gus]

Pressurised tin can though moxi, I get where you are coming from, however we get more sh1t about not having smoke alarms fitted & checked regularly, this on the other hand is an undersea nuclear weapon holding & attack capable submersible that may one day be reported as "a disaster occurrence resulting from an unimaginable chain of events which are currently under investigation to ensure it never happens again" ..copy & paste statement for something much bigger..

I understand these were for insulation, but shortcuts are shortcuts whilst paying well over the odds to a favoured contractor to ensure safety of lives at sea, plus potentially hard to retrieve nuclear material, plus national security..

How does rthis compare to a mod laptop left on a train, good question, but ask a sailor I guess how much faith do they put in competent repairs to the safety of crew & vessel & I expect whilst they will have their own known in situ bodge to keep us afloat & operational repairs this likely makes them spit teeth as to potential botches elsewhere that was covertly done by a lazy a-hole.

The discovery of which is doubtless causing more ti.e wasted checking other work than simply doing the job properly in the first place,a flagrant disregard for all, and if periodic overtightening was the initial cause then even more lax because the perpetrator of the "repair" well knows it is not going to hold.

Behind locked door prison sentence I hope (but doubtful)

A relation was a military jet engineer for aircraft repair, & the buck stopped with him as to quality control, he latterly moved into overseeing commercial passenger jets for saudi? & i'm thankful for his good conscience & high standards.

[Moxi]

Don't get me wrong its serious because they opted to play it down and as everyone says it doesn't speak well of general adherence to standards and reporting.

I do object to the papers hyping it up as though it was a critical safety item directly related to nuclear systems. Ignorant reporting of that type just wastes effort and undermines good systems and for what ? a few thousand quid of daily paper sales ? That in itself is as disgraceful as someone understating the impact of gluing earth bonding straps hoping to get away with a sub standard job.

Moxi

[Mr Gus]

Definitely, ..sadly there is little room for the best word of all "context" ..which without is just at best obfuscation of a matter deemed important enough to construct & print in the first instance,..slippery, sh*t strewn downward steps to the tabloid cellar thereafter.

Would like a proper insight into the mindset of the presumably highly trained & qualified dry dock engineer responsible.

[Moxi]

After all that I would have liked to listen in to the call between the MoD Minister and the Babcock MD

I bet there was quite a bit of "frank" discussion between them and subsequent to that I can imagine the ripples down through the Babcock business until a tidal wave of the brown stuff hit the team involved with working on the sub.

Moxi

[Mr Gus]

Welcome to your first day at babcock...
As a team your job is to make watertight a pressurised tank in which you will all be submersed in a agitated water environment for an unspecified number of hours, ..just to ensure your mindset is never to leave anything to "chance" ..is how this kind of work needs drumming home, ..bet there is a spate of increased drug & alcohol testing for the foreseeable at babcock.