Deeps

Let’s raise a cheer, and a few glasses, to the Englands women’s team for another Grand Slam.

Yes, but generally they are known as turntables! (sorry for my sense of humour)

As my surname is Knight perhaps I better keep my head down?

Absolutely correct. Gearbox inspections were carried out with exceptional attention to cleanliness and the control of tools used in maintenance. The work area was encased in a tent, all overall pockets empty and all tools were religiously logged in and out. I served a couple of years on Victorious and they are indeed big boats, substantially bigger than the Fleet boats I had traditionally served on. It is easy for the uninitiated to get lost on them!

‘Scram’ is a term for the automatic shutdown of a nuclear reactor, due to operating parameters exceeding safe margins. The term was originally used during the early days of development in the USA when if things went slightly ‘pear shaped’ the action of the operators was to leave with all haste! A reactor scram on a submarine can result in a partial or a full shutdown dependant on the criteria being monitored. If it is a partial scram the reactor can be brought back on line fairly quickly, which is quite desirable where continued propulsion and electrical generation is needed whereas a full scam will result in a protracted recovery and loss of critical functions. The ‘partial’ scram facility is unique to submarine plants, compared with civil plants, for fairly obvious reasons. I feel it may be necessary to create a separate thread for submarine technicalities, possibly in the Wheeltappers area? Out of interest, are there any other serving or ex-submariners in RMweb?

The reactor, at least the viable fuel in it. The pressure hull is quite thick, as you would expect, which is why our decommissioned boats can safely be laid up in harbours for decades without concerns over watertight integrity or radioactive ‘leakage’. They are routinely taken into dry dock for surveys and hull preservation. The fuel elements are exhausted and will have been removed for reprocessing, but the reactor pressure vessels themselves, and associated systems, remain radioactive. This explains the problem of what to do with our old boats but as we have time on our side we can delay the final decision until the safest and most environmentally effective process is decided on. As to the issue of supplying the grid, despite the fact that unburnt fuel remains in the core of a decommissioned boat the nature of our operating procedures prevents us safely taking the plant critical. The technicalities are quite complex and, even if I was allowed to, it would take me hours to explain them. Interestingly, the reactor design of the early boats was such that they needed refuelling after about 7 years, even when there was still a critical mass of unburnt fuel remaining in the core. Current designs and procedures mean that the fuel elements are engineered so that the reactors will last the life of the boat without refuelling, possibly over 25 years.

We regularly brushed our cats. When approaching them with the brush they became excited at the prospect of a sensual massage but the skill was judging the point when they decided they’d had enough and would sink their claws into your arm.

This behaviour is all too common. I once had a Mercedes tailgate me as I was overtaking on a dual carriageway, the driver clearly irritated that I was sticking to the speed limit. After I pulled over the Mercedes shot past then immediately pulled into the inside lane, obviously intending to turn off at the approaching junction. He had to brake heavily because he was now tucked up behind a lorry and although I was also planning to turn off I calculated I could safely overtake the pair of them before reaching the slip road. This worked out perfectly and I could imagine the utter disbelief and frustration of the Mercedes driver when he found himself stuck behind me again, religiously sticking to the 30 mph limit. Such moments of satisfaction are rare.

I don’t navigate by satnav, and my post was meant to illustrate that OTHER drivers could be distracted by digital display's. The wife will use satnav but generally I plan long distance journeys in advance and commit the route to memory. Plus, having been a Boy Scout, I have a good sense of direction anyway!

I have a mobile phone, somewhere, but unlike the majority of the population I do not need to have it my hand for every waking hour of the day. I certainly do not use one in the car and I am highly critical of those that do. However, whilst it is clearly dangerous to do so, I’m fairly sure it is less distracting than fiddling around with all the media and setting functions in modern cars, including built-in satnav. Don’t shoot the messenger but you can use your phone whilst monitoring the road ahead but trying to fathom out how to find Radio 2 requires me to focus on the digital display in the centre of the dashboard (remember the halcyon days when to change channels you had push buttons, easily found without looking down?). Use of a handheld phone had to be made a specific offence, even though it was effectively covered by existing legislation, but can you imagine the upheaval if it became illegal to search your in-car settings whilst on the move? Earlier in this thread it was suggested that sticking an electric motor and batteries in a Series Land Rover would produce the equivalent of a milk float. Well, at least you would be unlikely to exceed the prevailing speed limit and you wouldn’t have the additional distraction, expense and questionable reliability of the gimmickry they insist on fitting in EV’s. As it happens, a milk float would be ideal for our supermarket run! Don’t take all this too seriously, it’s just the observations of someone who no longer enjoys driving.

I have been overwhelmed by the amount of TV coverage for the occasion.

Of course, and I apologise for being slow on the uptake. I imagined it was the location of an auction house specialising in railway memorabilia etc. As to the items of tat featured in this thread, and being a financially inconvenienced pensioner, I would readily dump such items in a skip. Hopefully, my wife would do the same to me if she discovered I had bought one!

I’m not sure if this is a compliment or condemnation. As far as I know none of my railwayana items have come from Bradford and I know not what the connection is? At the risk of being exposed to another drain on my pension could you explain it please.

The reactor is not always critical as it will be shutdown when alongside, with an electrical shore supply connected for various services onboard. However, if the boat needs to move to another wharf, whilst the reactor is shutdown, and shore services will need to be temporarily disconnected, then the diesel(s) will be flashed up to support essential services. It takes several days to get a the reactor flashed up from a cold state so this would not be practical for such a move. The diesels do indeed drive generators; 2 DC ones on Fleet Boats and on the Tridents one DC and one AC. The main battery is the first ‘back up’ if reactor power is lost at sea, due to a reactor ‘Scram’, and can support essential services for a limited time until the reactor is back on line. This allows the boat to stay submerged and quiet. If the shutdown is protracted then it will be necessary to run diesels to recharge the battery. This can be done with the boat at periscope depth, using a snorkel, but the stealth element will obviously be compromised.

Having spent 30 years as an ERA in the Submarine Service (although, by the time I joined up, we were known as MEA’s) I feel qualified to state that complaining about problems, significant or otherwise, was usually a waste of time and. Having to do the maintenance and repairs we had a better appreciation of the specifics than the officers, but they were shackled by the constraints of the bean counters further up the chain of command. I had little experience of Crossleys as all of my boats were equipped with Paxmans. The main problem with these was that they weren’t, usually, run for extended periods as we had the more powerful Rolls Royce power plant (a reactor) for propulsion. The diesels were generally only required as a back-up and were usually only run up for test and training purposes, which meant they spent little time properly loaded. Consequently they suffered fouling up from exhaust soot. The Paxmans were of a similar design to those used on BR’s HST’s but ours needed to be serviced far sooner than those on the HST’s. Anyway, the rum ration had been stopped before I joined up and on a submarine there is no room to swing a lash! Other than that, I would say we never had a ‘quiet life’.