Canada’s going to need to use its aging secondhand British subs for another decade

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“I don’t think anybody’s first preference would be to (keep them running for another decade) because it’s been difficult enough to keep them operational to the extent that they have been up until this point, let alone trying to go another decade.”

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Industry isn’t keen on making spare parts for the Victoria Class because Canada’s are the only four in existence, Mitchell said. “There’s no profit motive to make these things. So, you have to go to very expensively bespoke-made parts. And that’s the limiting factor — just how much money do you want to spend on maintaining these things?”

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The spare parts problem was of our own making, Mitchell said.

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“When we bought these things in 1998, the Canadian government, in all its wisdom, insisted on a $50-million discount from Britain,” he said.

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“And Britain said basically, okay, we’re going to give you the $50 million. But what we’re not going to do is give you a warehouse full of spare parts.”

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The Brits were able to use the spares for their Trafalgar Class submarine program, Mitchell said. “And from that point on, we had spare part problems.”

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Victoria Class refits have gone on for years because technicians would hit roadblocks, Mitchell said. “You’d need a piece and you couldn’t have it for another six months. You can’t do anything more with the sub until that piece gets fixed. And so, you know, it would sit and wait for things.”

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Besides costing Canada a lot of money, the shortage of spares sparked some interesting submarine lore, he said.

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“There’s all kinds of ghost stories in the navy about people being sent over to Scotland to scour through people’s garages, because they might have this piece kicking around,” Mitchell said.

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“I don’t know how true that is, but in the closeout report for the Submarine Capability Life Extension Project, the number one problem that they identified was spares.”

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Between 2003 and 2022 Corner Brook covered the least distance out of the four subs, traveling 55,030 kilometres, Mitchell said. “Windsor has spent the most time at sea with 98,153 kilometres in that time period.”

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Only a single sub was available in both 2005 and 2020, he said.

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“In 2012, there were no sea days accumulated by the Victoria-class submarine,” Lieut. Fahad Kabir of Navy Public Affairs said Friday in an email.

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They logged the most sea time in 2013, with 276 sea days across the force, Kabir said.

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Windsor traveled the most distance of the four in a single year in 2015 when it sailed 21,695 km to Scotland and Spain, Mitchell said. Chicoutimi came second in that contest in 2017 by traveling 20,896 km to Japan and Korea.

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Corner Brook logged the least sea time in the fleet between 2005 and 2022, sailing a total of 55,030 km over that period. Windsor covered the most distance — 98,153 km — during that span.

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Corner Brook’s grounding on June 4, 2011, during submerged maneuvers near Nootka Sound did a lot of damage to the sub’s nose, but that’s not a pressure-bearing part of the hull, Mitchell said.

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When the navy got the sub into refit, however, it discovered corrosion, which needed to be fixed, he said. Then a pressure vessel in the sub was damaged during the repairs.

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Fixing all that took more than a decade, Mitchell said. “The navy was grinding its teeth the whole time.”

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Corner Brook’s grounding might have been down to too little time at sea for the submariners who were aboard, he said. “There’s a lot of speculation that it was from skill fade, that they just weren’t getting people out to sea enough. And there were some procedures that they should have known how to do that they didn’t have down pat. And that allowed that grounding to take place.”