British aircraft carrier was rapidly scrambled to take the lead on major NATO exercise

Being the captain of a ship in maintenance is a weird feeling. Three things always struck me in these periods. First, how big the team is from ashore. Dozens – in the case of the PoW, hundreds – of people are now aboard who you have never seen before. Many of them have no idea who you are … nor do some of them seem to care. 

Second, there is the state of the ship. Your carefully manicured diplomacy and warfighting machine is under attack. Scaffolders are everywhere putting up poles and tents. Holes appear in decks to take engines out. Paint gets stripped back to reveal undercoats. Deck protectors go down everywhere to protect them from oily boots. Equipment is tagged out to allow for maintenance and there is a perpetual sound of banging, drilling and announcements (“pipes”, we say in the Service) on the main broadcast. It’s well organised, but a mess nonetheless. 

Third, and related to point two, is safety. Carefully crafted systems to keep you both watertight and able to rapidly deal with incidents at sea all change. Pipes and cable pass through watertight, fireproof doors and hatches meaning they can’t be shut. There is little that can be done about this, it’s part of a major work package, but it is not a comfortable feeling. The USS Bonhomme Richard was in deep maintenance in July 2020 when a small fire, started as arson, spread so completely that it destroyed the ship. It was five days before all fires were reported extinguished. 

Then imagine that one quiet evening your sister ship, preparing to sail for the biggest Nato exercise in decades, is found to have a shaft corrosion problem. You get a call, probably from your administrative chain of command saying, ‘you know that 30 days notice to sail thing? Yup, you’re now at seven – make it so’. This won’t be a complete surprise. Chances are the captain of the other ship already called informing you that they have ‘an issue’.