This would be Andy Jones’ and my home for the best part of a week, in a voyage from Plymouth to Scotland. RFA ‘Tidespring’ is one of the newest fleet support ships the Royal Navy can call on. She’s equipped to deliver whatever’s needed:
above all, fuel. Essential for the new super-carriers, whose designers opted for conventional fuel for her propulsion system – turbines feeding electric motors. Nuclear propulsion was rejected due to its high cost and manpower required, in favour of ‘Integrated Electric Propulsion’ – with two Rolls-Royce Marine Trent gas turbine generator units and four Wärtsilä diesel generator sets (two at 9 megawatts delivering 12,000 horse power, two at 11 megawatts delivering 15,000 horsepower.) All of that needs engineers. So does the RFA – with a catch: though it’s a civilian service, all crew members must be UK citizens.
FURNISHING THE FLEET
02 September 2024
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About Rob
Rob is a TV producer, reporter and camera operator with 30 years of experience at the BBC, Channel 4 and ITN, in news, factual and documentary production. He is a four-time award winner, whose awards include a coveted Royal Television Society award for his work on Channel 4 News. His association with the Maritime Foundation goes back to 1995 when he won the first Desmond Wettern Maritime Media Award for a series of reports that led to a major documentary on the loss of the bulk carrier Derbyshire.