Sea follies: Spain lengthened new submarine because it wouldn’t float. Now it’s too long to fit its dock
The Spanish navy will now have to dredge its main submarine base to accommodate the S-80 sub, which was lengthened by 10 metres when it was discovered to be too heavy to float
First it was too heavy, then it was too long. Either way Spain’s expensive attempt to modernise its submarine fleet has gone awry – and left Russian diplomats amused.
The Spanish navy has now been forced to dredge and expand its main submarine base to accommodate the latest version of its S-80 Plus flagship vessel.
Problems with the submarine first became apparent in 2013 when it was discovered it would be too heavy to float, necessitating a redesign to make it lighter and spread the weight over an extra 10 metres.
But that means the vessel is now too long to fit into the submarine dock in the Spanish naval base in Cartagena, south-east Spain. The cost of the infrastructure works needed to adapt the dock to the submarines are estimated at €16million (US$19 million).
An interesting chain of miscalculations. Never imagined this could be possible in a modern navy
The Spanish government will approve in the next few days raising the total additional cost for each of the four submersibles to roughly €1billion, practically twice what was initially forecast.