Displaying items by tag: Steadfast Defender 2024

6th February 2024

Royal Navy Blames Propeller Issues for Flagship’s Withdrawal From Historic NATO Drill

The UK’s Royal Navy has withdrawn its fleet flagship from a historic NATO exercise on Norway’s Arctic coast over what it says are issues with the vessel’s propeller.

According to Marine Industry News, the HMS Queen Elizabeth had been due to sail from Portsmouth on Sunday evening (4 February) until routine checks identified an issue with a coupling on the vessel’s starboard propeller shaft.

The £3.5bn, 65,000-ton aircraft carrier — which has parts constructed in the same shipyard that built the Naval Service’s LÉ George Bernard Shaw — will be replaced by sister ship HMS Prince of Wales in exercise Steadfast Defender 2024.

The Prince of Wales has had its own share of propeller issues, previously breaking down shortly after setting out for the United States on deployment in August 2022.

Steadfast Defender 2024 is NATO’s largest exercise since the end of the Cold War, involving some 90,000 military personnel from all NATO members and Sweden.

Marine Industry News has more on the story HERE.

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About Conor O'Brien, Irish Circumnavigator

In 1923-25, Conor O'Brien became the first amateur skipper to circle the world south of the Great Capes. O'Brien's boat Saoirse was reputedly the first small boat (42-foot, 13 metres long) to sail around the world since Joshua Slocum completed his voyage in the 'Spray' during 1895 to 1898. It is a journey that O' Brien documented in his book Across Three Oceans. O'Brien's voyage began and ended at the Port of Foynes, County Limerick, Ireland, where he lived.

Saoirse, under O'Brien's command and with three crew, was the first yacht to circumnavigate the world by way of the three great capes: Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope and Cape Leeuwin; and was the first boat flying the Irish tri-colour to enter many of the world's ports and harbours. He ran down his easting in the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties between the years 1923 to 1925.

Up until O'Brien's circumnavigation, this route was the preserve of square-rigged grain ships taking part in the grain race from Australia to England via Cape Horn (also known as the clipper route).

At a Glance - Conor O'Brien's Circumnavigation

In June 1923, Limerick man Conor O’Brien set off on his yacht, the Saoirse — named after the then newly created Irish Free State — on the two-year voyage from Dun Laoghaire Harbour that was to make him the first Irish amateur to sail around the world.

June 1923 - Saoirse’s arrival in Madeira after her maiden passage out from Dublin Bay

2nd December 1924 - Saoirse crossed the longitude of Cape Horn

June 20th 1925 - O’Brien’s return to Dun Laoghaire Harbour