(March 2002)
Problems Plague Submarine
A former Royal Navy submarine, now operated by Canada, has been plagued by a number of serious problems.
HMCS Windsor, previously HMS Unicorn, left Halifax on Monday March 4th for a two week training exercise. However when her hydraulic systems became contaminated by seawater off the coast of Nova Scotia, she was forced to abandon the exercise.
As she returned home a second, more serious breech occurred. A crew member flipped a ballast switch the wrong way, causing a storage tank to overflow and 2,000 litres of water to enter the submarine. Sailors used everything they could lay their hands on to try and bail out the water, including yoghurt pots and buckets. They then used sleeping bags to try and plug the flow. The situation could have become even more serious had the seawater reached the submarine’s batteries and produced chlorine gas.
These are not the first problems to have occurred aboard HMCS Windsor. On her delivery voyage from Britain to Canada last year, she leaked hydraulic fluid, her radar mast leaked and had to be repaired with masking tape and a plastic bag, her sonar broke and another piece of equipment had to be unjammed using a hockey stick.
Windsor and her three sisterships were leased to Canada in 1998 for £322 million.