For Those In Peril on the Sea - thoughts on the loss of HELGE INGSTADE

The tragic loss of the Norwegian Frigate HELGE INGSTAD is a timely reminder of the peril on the sea. The maritime environment is an inherently difficult and dangerous place to operate it, when even very routine operations have the potential to go disastrously wrong.

Over the coming months we will no doubt learn a great deal about this incident and what happened, but for now Humphrey wanted to capture a few initial thoughts.

Firstly, the reaction and the fact that no lives were lost is not only a minor miracle, but a good reminder of the value of the Sea Training conducted not only by the Royal Norwegian Navy, but also the Royal Navy at FOST (with whom the Norwegians regularly train).

To undergo a collision at any time is difficult, but to experience it in the darkest hours of the night, with most of the crew probably sound asleep in bed is incredibly challenging. The actions onboard in the hour between the collision and the decision to ground and abandon ship, when people had to quickly move from sleep to conducting damage control for real in order to save their lives is a testament to the training the crew was able to receive.

This helps reaffirm the critical importance that the Royal Navy places on damage control training, and to ensure that everyone on board is capable of fighting fires and flooding. While the lessons of the Falklands War and firefighting may be nearly 40 years ago now, the RN has a long history of groundings and collisions to draw on and learn from. It is likely that there will be many lessons shared here on what worked, and what didn’t work.

Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

What is clear though is that the decision by the Captain to intentionally ground the ship was a phenomenally brave action. To take the measured decision to run your vessel aground on rocks must go against the ingrained instincts of every mariner. It demonstrates that huge faith is vested in relatively junior individuals to take genuinely difficult decisions quickly, and that they have the confidence to know they can potentially write off 20% of their nations escort fleet if that is what it takes to save life.

The decision on what happens next is unclear. The vessel now lies almost completely submerged in water and is essentially a write off. Even if the hull could be salvaged the size of the refit required to repair her fully (which would include completely rewiring the vessel and fitting out from scratch with new electronic components and weapon systems) is such that scrapping her is the only likely action.

The RN has also effectively lost a vessel this way in recent years, with HMS ENDURANCE being flooded so badly during an incident some years ago that she never sailed again.  HMS NOTTINGHAM suffered enormous damage during her grounding off Lord Howe Island, and it was reportedly only the fact that the cost of repairing her was less than refitting another vessel to her level of capability that stopped her from being scrapped too.

For modern navies that go to sea, collisions and groundings are an occupational hazard, but they also pose a challenge to navies as fleets get smaller. The Norwegians have now lost 20% of their frigate force in one incident, many years before a new build programme was likely to have occurred. Even if repaired, it will blow an enormous hole in the center of naval programming for their navy for years to come.

Some have asked what would happen if this had been an RN warship – would it have hurt our own operational commitments? Ironically right now had an RN warship gone aground that badly, it probably would make relatively little difference on operational output. The lack of manpower that has left two escorts in active reserve for some years now means that a spare ships company had essentially become available to send the other one to sea.

While not a perfect solution, the Royal Navy is in the curious position of essentially running a plot of 17 ships with 19 in the force, thus buying it a little bit of space for attrition against this sort of problem.

In the medium term the RN would also benefit from the existence of a credible long-term shipbuilding plan. Both the Type  26 & 31e have a building plan stretching out well into the 2030s. While the loss would be felt, one of the benefits of the current shipbuilding strategy is that the scope is there to replace the loss in the medium term. A similar situation occurred after the Falklands War where additional Type 42 and 22s were ordered for the RN to replace losses from the war.

The wider lesson for the RN is the critical importance of maintaining an effective salvage and mooring organisation able to respond quickly to events of this nature. While hardly the ‘glamorous’ side of naval business, there is a body of well trained and capable people working out of DE&S to ensure that in a crisis, the means exist to recover our vessels. The ongoing importance of this work cannot be underestimated – the ability to ensure an RN vessel in trouble can be recovered is vital.

For those interested in the underpinning policy of such situations, then the link HERE to RN salvage policy is worth a read. One gem is the discovery that in 2015 the MOD stated that:

“The only award now payable under the Naval Prize Act, 1864, is for prize salvage for the recapture of British property in war. It cannot be claimed if the recaptured vessel has been used as a ship of war by the enemy…”

 One perhaps more delicate issue is the subject of faith in testing times. While not widely talked about, faith is inextricably linked to the Service, and all new recruits are required to attend Church Parade or some religious service during basic training. The first Article of War for the RN was about ensuring that CO’s enable their Ships Companies to engage in religious worship.

It is inevitable during times of great stress that people may find they seek solace and comfort in a religious figure. Not everyone does, but the Armed Forces Chaplaincy Service has evolved into a critical spiritual and welfare service to help provide this guidance when sought. This can range from a communion through to delivery of much needed morale on operations (as BRNC Dartmouth tweeted today with images of Chaplains carrying mini mars bars for tired cadets on a field exercise).

In a week where much of the media attention has focused on Remembrance, the spiritual element of Service has rarely been far from the front pages. Today it was intriguing to see that the RN was caught up in this when keen eyed historians noted that the announcement of the naming of the 8^th Type 26 frigate as HMS LONDON included a subtly changed motto.

There is some debate by former RN personnel as to the specific nature of the motto. Reportedly previous HMS LONDON’s have used the same motto as the City of London – “Domine dirige nos”, which roughly translates as ‘Lord direct (guide) us’. The announcement for the new vessels name includes a reduced motto of ‘Dirige Nos’ or ‘Guide (direct) us’.

There has been some debate as to whether the motto was used in full, or partially abbreviated, and there is no clear answer.  The MOD believes it hasn’t been used since the 1920s, yet other evidence, such as copies of Navy News suggests it was in use as recently as the COUNTY class and Type 22 namesakes. One has to hope that the MOD hasn't tried to bluff its way out of the situation... 

Notwithstanding the question as to who is supposed to direct the new HMS LONDON (presumably the Directing Staff), it seems a bit strange to delete the reference to the Lord. One has to hope that this represents an accidental omission and not a calculated decision  ‘not to do God’. 

The RN is rightly proud of its history, heritage and traditions. The names of ships stretch back for hundreds of years, usually carrying the same motto throughout use. For the RN to arbitrarily change a motto used for centuries, and which reflects the deep links to the City of London seems not only unnecessary, but deeply disrespectful to the City of London and to those of the Christian Faith.

A motto is a small part of the ships identity, but it still serves as an occasional source of inspiration, a timely form of words for a ships t-shirt or just to be ignored as people see fit. For ships with older names, the motto can often be used as a history lesson, talking through how the values espoused in the motto were seen in the activity and actions of their forbears – building a sense of identity and shared values.

It seems a great shame to cast away part of this shared history because perhaps the use of the word  ‘Lord’ was not seen as appropriate by some committee. More widely it makes Humphrey mildly uneasy because it reflects a wider sense of changing to be seen to be popular and trendy, not because you need to change.

Some things in the past have required gripping or altering to bring up to modern values. There have been cultural practises that were deeply inappropriate, or ships names that these days would probably not pass muster, no matter how respectfully the intent was behind the name (HMS EMPEROR OF INDIA?). But, to start gently chipping away at the history of the Service over the use of the Latin word for Lord does seem a little excessive. It also seems at odds with the professed fact that faith plays a central part in military life and culture.

One deeply has to hope that a genuine mistake has been made and that HMS LONDON will commission with her proper motto. Otherwise one has to wonder what the committee will make of the centuries old motto of the new HMS DREADNOUGHT :

“Fear God and Dread Nought”…