OH! DEAR! Nuclear submarine HMS Astute runs aground off Skye

[Kazzer]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-11605365

Oh! Dear! How did THAT happen?

[Subculture]

I met the Commander of that boat, Andy Coles.

He was a member of Sub Pirates back in the day, and joined the forum as apparently there were pictures of Russian subs the MOD hadn't seen! (I'm not kidding)

He was commander of HMS Turbulent, and was interested in making a model of his old boat. Well I told him about the four models available in various scales at that time and also put him onto a 1/64th Eden models hull that a club member wanted shot of.

He came to my club with his wife and young son to take a look at the hull, as he was fairly local at the time. He brought along an envelope full of stuff for me, including a cloth badge from HMS Victorious, some high resolution pictures of the Vanguard class and a set of dolphins as thanks for putting the information his way. I'd have been happy with a chat and a handshake.

He came across as a thoroughly decent bloke and from what I have read has had a distinguished career up until this unfortunate incident.

[Kazzer]

Very unfortunate. Lets hope there was a perfectly good reason for this 'little bit of trouble' (said in Michael Crawford accent - Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'em)

[Outrider]

This link shows a bit more about the sub and has a nice video featuring the Astute's CO:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11173266

The autopilot feature gets prominent mention as does the use of fly by wire controls. Will be interesting to see if any of these systems contributed to the grounding. Not mentioned is the presence of (or absence of) a collision or grounding avoidance system. Seems like something worth having, given the expense of Astute and others like it.

[Les Robertson]

The collision warning should have come from a sonarman or other operator of a fathometer and giving yellow and then red soundings to the Navigational party.
Also the Nav party obviously needed to update thier current fixof the ships position. Since there is mention of nav bouys in the surrounding waters, All stop should have been ordered before this screw up. I know the Captain of a vessel is ultimately responsible for the safety of ship and crew, but the Officer of the deck and the Navigational officer should take a few wacks for this blunder.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Was there a Pilot aboard? And if so, was he making course 'recommendations' at the time of the grounding? If so, there's an out for the CO.

David,