British life-style: “For six hundred people on a ship of Royal Navy not to have a daily warm shower is a disgrace!”

Photo: NI

The UK’s £3.5 billion Queen Elizabeth-class carriers face ongoing issues, including a months-long hot water failure, sparking “Showergate” complaints and raising concerns over reliability, cost, and future upgrades, writes ‘The National Interest’.

As conceived, the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers were to be the most advanced warships ever built in the United Kingdom. The lead vessel, HMS Queen Elizabeth, cost more than £3.5 billion and was also the most expensive military vessel built for the UK’s senior service.

HMS Queen Elizabeth and her sister ship, HMS Prince of Wales, were forced to undergo major repairs to their propeller shafts, which sidelined the carriers for months. The problems were behind them, and HMS Prince of Wales is now in the first stages of an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific. It is the second deployment of a Royal Navy carrier strike group (CSG) since 2021, when HMS Queen Elizabeth traveled to the Pacific and back, the first time in more than a generation.

Though the problems have been resolved, another issue plaguing the flattop is the hot water system that provides the crew with daily showers. The Times newspaper first reported, citing online complaints, that the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has reportedly been “waiting for nearly six months to receive some parts” necessary to address the problem.

“Currently over 170 days without guaranteed hot showers,” a crew member posted on the Fill Your Boots military gossip website earlier this month. “For six hundred people on a ship not to have a daily warm shower is a disgrace.”

The post added that sailors on the carrier must run the showers for more than twenty minutes to have a hot shower, a significant waste of the fresh water in the tanks.

“600 people on a ship not having a daily warm shower is a disgrace. The system is designed for 1600 but cannot support the current number of people onboard,” the post on the gossip site noted.

The Telegraph reported that the online complaints have received significant backlash, with some suggesting that today’s sailors are too “soft.”

“If the heirs of Nelson, Drake, and Raleigh are worried about not having warm showers, then the Royal Navy has rotted from within,” wrote one critic of the sailors’ complaints in a social media post.

“My father served on subs throughout WWII,” wrote another. “At sea, the crew were allowed to wipe themselves down with a damp flannel once a week.”

“Aircraft carrier personnel have always been a bit soft,” Captain Gerry Northwood, Royal Navy (retired), told The Telegraph. “If these sailors are complaining about a lack of hot showers, then frankly, they need a kick up the a**e.”

Another retired Royal Navy officer took a different view, telling the British paper, “It’s no good wearing a smart uniform if you’re smelly underneath.”

Retired Rear Admiral Chris Parry added, “This would have been a ridiculous situation fifty years ago, let alone now. It’s an aircraft carrier; for God’s sake, it has to generate tremendous power anyway. And if you haven’t got the parts to fix the showers, what else don’t you have the parts for?”

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