Not so Dauntless…(Royal) Navy's £1 billion warship blacked out by a £10 fuse

Bristling with cutting-edge technology and carrying an awesome array of weaponry, the Royal Navy’s new destroyer HMS Dauntless is said to be one of the world’s most sophisticated and powerful warships.

But the £1 billion ($1.61 billion) vessel was left helpless and stranded—when a £10 ($16) fuse apparently blew.

According to one source on board, the ship was ‘drifting for several minutes’ before the fault was corrected.

No official cause for the problem has been given, but Navy insiders suggested that the fuse blew because a complicated water-cooling system had not been adjusted to take account of the fact that the destroyer had entered an area of higher sea and air temperatures. …

Dauntless is the first of the Navy’s six new Type 45 destroyers to operate in tropical waters.

The incident is a huge embarrassment to the Ministry of Defense and Dauntless’ commander, Captain Will Warrender, particularly as his 190-strong crew had spent the previous week training sailors from Senegal, Gambia and Morocco on how to board suspect vessels. …

The total cost of the project to the Navy was £6.5 billion—£1.5 billion more than the original estimate.

In 2007, the Commons Defense Select Committee expressed its disappointment that the Ministry of Defense and defense contractor BAE Systems had failed to control rising costs. …

Britain has been relying on America?. Really?.

Build the Harrier did we?. Or the Vulcan?. Or Blue Streak?. Or the Chieftain or Challenger tank?. Fight the IRA did we? Or fight the Falklands War?. Or fight terrorism in Kenya, Malaya, Cyprus, Palestine, Aden, Arabia, Oman?.

If you think the UK has relied on America for its defence for the last 40, 50, 60 years, then your ignorance of the UK and the British military is pitiful. STFU, go away and try learning.

As for real fuses, thats a bit rich coming from a nation who spent a billion dollars on a stealth plane, and then couldnt fly in in the rain!.

Whoever and whatever was responsible for adjusting the system due to changes in the sea water temp and air temp, was not.

I'm scratching my head on that one and I worked on shipboard A/C units. IF the ship used a chill water LOOP system meaning a water cooled pumped through the ship to coils at the fan rooms or air handlers the adjustment should have been automatic.

Warmer sea water temps would mean higher head pressure on the A/C itself. Several other safteys or at least one on the unit itself should have tripped first. The sea water would displace heat absorbed from inside the ship. Or to make it more understandable like the condensing unit fan blowing hot air outside on your central heat and air. Ships use sea water for that.

I'm gonna go out on a limb on this one and see if this makes a bit more sense. Most electronics onboard ships are heat sensitive. You have maximum temps on some equipment that may cause the electronics to trip off. IOW I would bet it wasn't the A/C unit fuse that blew but rather the fuse at the electrical load dispatchers control console due to high operational temps.

USN requires the main A/C units to be checked minimum once every two hours and logged readings. A good AC&R top watch {not the one who takes those reading but the on watch operator should be able to see notable changes at his desk. I could sit in the shop and by reading two thermometers on the chill water loop tell you with reasonably good accuracy if a unit had tripped off and which portion of the ship it was in.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.