H.M.S Challenger

Nice to see that in colour.Sure I/ve got a B&W somewhere.Much better shot!

now was that the biggest farce ever, was she actually in commission for about a month!!!!!!!, and for sale for years

First commisioned in 1984 and laid up in 1994 so the MoD(N) did get ten years work out of it. Whether that was worthwhile expense is debatable.

Cockerhoop was probably right. The taxpayer didn't get 10 years work out of her. She spent years in Portsmouth while they tried to sort out the saturation diving system.

It was in commision for ten years, not months, whether it worked or not is another story.

Was it the ship that was deficient or the fitted systems? Strikes me you can't denigrate Challenger based on the fact that the saturation diving system didn't work.

I feel that she should have been painted white; as in elephant. In addition to the problems that the RN had with her, she was responsible for monumental losses for British Shipbuilders, the closure of the lower Clyde shipyards and starvation ration of investment funds for the rest of the Corporation. Who and what was to blame? It is a subject for endless argument, but her name brings a shudder to anyone involved in shipbuilding in Britain in the 1980s.
When the RN eventually sold her, she was laid-up in the Tyne for years.

Fred

Where is she now?

I heard she had been sold to a company called Subsea offshore (www.subsea7.com). I have looked at the vessels on their website but I can't really find any information that mentions her. If she is one of the ships pictured she has been rebuilt beyond recognition. The only vessel that sounds similar is one called Kommander 3000, built in 1984 and converted at a later date but she is only 118m in length which I'm sure is shorter than Challenger was. I'd love to know for sure what happened to her.

Now called the YaToivo. Sea bed mining vessel. Operated by Geolab.
Check her out at: www.geolab.it/MV_YaToivo.pdf