THE HMS QUEEN Elizabeth was accepted into the Royal Navy fleet by the Queen earlier this month, but it’s already sprung a leak.
The mammoth €3.5 billion aircraft carrier is the biggest and most powerful ever built in the UK. It’s also been leaking for quite some time, taking on around 200 litres of water an hour.
A Royal Navy spokesperson said: “An issue with a shaft seal has been identified during HMS Queen Elizabeth’s sea trials. This is scheduled for repair while she is alongside at Portsmouth.
It does not prevent her from sailing again and her sea trials programme will not be affected.
The carrier has a flight deck that is 280m long, houses 700 crew and has 155,000 miles of electrical cable inside the ship. Nearly 10,000 people worked to build the ship.
Speaking to the BBC, Rear Admiral Chris Parry, who was a former director of operational capability at the Ministry of Defence, described the headlines as “very embarrassing” but “in reality is no big deal”.
He said: “You expect to take some water in when you’re operating a warship at sea.
It’s been out for sea trials, it’s been under pressure. They’ve been testing all their systems to the extremes and I’m afraid to say this is what happens at sea.
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