Royal Navy destroyer prone to breaking down in the Gulf leaves Portsmouth for key engine upgrade

Type 45 destroyer HMS Dauntless left Portsmouth last night destined for Cammell Laird’s shipyard in Birkenhead, Liverpool.

A workforce of 100 engineers will be working on overhauling the warship’s vulnerable propulsion as part of a £160m to upgrade the navy’s £6bn fleet of destroyers.

The project had initially been earmarked to begin in November but as revealed by The Newsit was delayed amid on-going maintenance work and operational commitments.

HMS Dauntless, which has been in extended refit after being relegated to the role of a ‘training ship’ in 2017, will be the first to get the new engine upgrades, armed forces minister James Heappey previously confirmed.

Speaking earlier this year, he said: ‘Work will commence this spring and the ship will return to sea for trials in 2021.

‘The timetable for the power improvement project is dependent on the availability of ships to undertake the conversion, balanced against the Royal Navy's standing and future operational commitments.’

The state-of-the-art air defence warships are currently fitted with Rolls-Royce WR-21 gas turbines which struggle to operate in extreme temperatures.

Rolls-Royce executives said the engines installed in the Type 45 destroyers had been built as specified – but that the conditions in the Middle East were not ‘in line with these specs’.

The engine woes, which the MoD initially dismissed as ‘teething problems’, first became clear when HMS Daring lost power in the mid-Atlantic in 2010 and had to be fixed in Canada.

The ship, built by BAE Systems, needed repairing again in Bahrain in 2012 after another engine failure.

The improvement project will now see the ship’s two existing diesel generators replaced with three larger units.

The MoD said it would increase the ‘propulsion capable engines from two to five’.

‘This results in an overall increase in power generating capacity, as well as the introduction of additional redundancy in the event of breakdown or maintenance,’ a spokeswoman for the MoD’s Defence Equipment and Support wing said.

Dauntless is expected to arrive at Birkenhead ‘early next week’. Asked whether the coronavirus pandemic would cause any further delays to the project, a government spokeswoman said: ‘It is too early to understand any possible impacts.

‘Our key priority is working with suppliers to support their compliance with government guidelines and maintain their critical outputs to defence.’

The 8,500-tonne ship’s last deployment was to the Gulf in 2015, where she supported the battle against Isis in the Middle East.

Speaking in November last year, Dauntless’s skipper, Commander Tom Trent said: ‘We are all ready for the challenge and will relish being the first of class for this essential midlife upgrade to this superb destroyer.’

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