RFA Cardigan Bay arrived in Portland in early September after more than two years away from the UK. Due to crew shortages, the RFA is currently unable to move her from Portland to Falmouth to begin a planned refit.
The ship sailed from the UK in June 2022 to replace RFA Lyme Bay forward-deployed in Bahrain where she was employed as planned in the Gulf region, primarily supporting mine warfare forces. In the first half of 2023, she conducted trials with RNMB Harrier, the first autonomous MCM boat to be integrated into the operational environment under the command of the new Mine Threat Exploitation Group (MTXG).
When forward-deployed in the Gulf, the Bay class vessels have also supported US mine warfare assets in the region. Although designed as landing ships to provide logistic support to amphibious forces, their well dock, large flight deck, and troop accommodation means they are highly flexible and in great demand.
In March 2024 the ship was re-directed from the Gulf to the Mediterranean. The relocation from Bahrain without replacement represents a risk against MCM capability in the Persian Gulf. Having once been a force of 4 MCMVs and a support ship, the RN now has just 2 active Minehunters available (HMS Chiddingfold and HMS Middleton. HMS Bangor is currently in the BASREC floating dock for repairs to the hole in the ship’s side and the associated damage where it was compressed against the jetty during the accident in January).
Cardigan Bay was escorted through the dangerous Bab el Mandeb Straits and the Red Sea by HMS Diamond, protecting her from the very real threat of drone and missile attacks. She arrived in Cyprus in mid-April and was tasked with supporting the US Amy-led effort to build a temporary floating pier to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.
The ship acted primarily as a floating accommodation base for US personnel. With around 200 soldiers onboard working long days in 30-35º heat of the Mediterranean summer, the ship’s air conditioning proved to be “sub-optimal” and satellite TV was unreliable. Despite the challenging work, the crew were commended by their Captain Mark Colley for their resilience and dedication during this mission. “Everyone demonstrated professionalism and resolve knowing that we were making a difference”, he said. The pier was operational between May – July 2024 and although twice damaged by bad weather, eventually, 8,800 tonnes of food aid was delivered over the beach in an effort largely ignored by the international media.
RFA Mounts Bay relived Cardigan Bay in the eastern Mediterranean to continue readiness for potential evacuation operations, she is currently in Cyprus. (Mounts Bay sailed without being equipped with Phalanx CIWS mounts, despite the known missile threat.) Cardigan Bay arrived in Gibraltar on 20th August and stayed for 12 days before heading back to the UK. She came alongside in Portland which is better suited for unloading stores and more convenient for VIP visitors. In contrast to HMS Diamond’s return from a very demanding deployment, the homecoming was a low-key affair. The ship was visited by Rr Adml Jude Terry, Director of People and Training, and Cdre Sam Shattock, the newly appointed head of the RFA.
It was planned the ship would sail from Portland on 11th September to have her Lloyds survey and much-needed refit at A&P shipyard in Falmouth. This has been delayed until the end of the month at least due to a lack of certified sailors. In times past, volunteers would probably have been found for this short passage but this time, everyone refused. The RFA has been running on goodwill for years but this has simply run out as demands for fair pay have been ignored. Essentially the RFA is now so short of people, that is unable to even find a handful of mariners needed to take a ship on a brief and very routine passage from Portland to Falmouth.
RFA Tidespring is also in a similar position, alongside in Portland but lacking sufficient certified crew to sail. Although a delay of a few weeks getting Cardigan Bay to the shipyard is not of huge issue in itself, the wider concern is the collapse of RFA personnel numbers. There is a serious risk that, like RFA Tiderace (and possibly RFA Tideforce), once the ship enters refit, she might never emerge as there may be no sailors to take her back to sea.
Main image: RFA Cardigan Bay alongside in Portland, 13 Sept 2023. (Photo: A.P.Photography).
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Whole service surely reaching the point of no return. Can’t see the justification for a separate civilian entity when it can barely run 2 tankers and a couple of other support ships.
Because it can run a couple of tankers and other support ships better than handing the roles over to the RN and a lot cheaper than handing the roles to profit making commercial entities.
The simple solution is pay the sailors a fair wage, treat them with respect and the goodwill will return.
If we cannot do the above we might as well give up as a country.
The RN can’t man it’s current fleet how do you think it could man the RFA in addition ?
You may like to look at RFA history and the public purse before making stupid statements like this. Yes the RFA is short of people but it is due to pay not keeping up with commercial ventures and the RN and considerable underinvestment over 20 years. The RFA is the best value for money within MOD and up until recently manage to achieve all tasking. The country is “reaping what it sows”, no thought or investment in seafaring and we are an island nation!!!!!!
I agree pay is a big deal but the other reason is the powers to be to do with the RFA let too many qualified sailors go or sacked due to security issues as you have to do a security clearance every 10 years and if you dont get it done the way they want you to they put you on suspension have an online disciplinary which at the end have already made up their minds to let you go at 13 good years of service I loved my job but yet because of politics and wanting people do online security questionnaire on an open line is not on they get rid of highly qualified crew members to train younger recruits as far as I was lead to believe they sacked a good few due to security clearance I could have appealed but hardly anyone wins against the government and the military
Security issues are not driven by the RFA but are mandated through the wider MOD. In may experience revalidation issues are slow but not the reason people leave the service. As for doing online security questionnaires on a open line I would suggest you are not following the correct procedure as revalidation is conducted on a protected link via the vetting team!!
Looks like a rerun of the 1970’s when good people were leaving in droves for a better life in the broader MN or civvy street. Numerous billets were gapped as a result.
No need to be so rude.
I absolutely get that the RFA has always been great value for money and a real under appreciated asset.
My point was not that I want to see it absorbed into the RN or tendered out to Serco or whatever. It’s that we have a defence review ongoing with a government desperate to make even further savings.
May not have reached it yet, but there will come a point where it is so short of people and manning fewer and fewer of its vessels that the vultures will decide to go in for the kill.
Which yes, could be pretty cheaply and effectively avoided if they would just give them a decent pay rise and improve conditions to make it more attractive.
Reading the article, it’s not that there are no sailors available to move her, it’s that there is now no goodwill left for sailors to volunteer to move her. Which given the industrial action being taken, should be no surprise at all. Classic example of an employer neglecting a workforce and then being astonished by the withdrawal of goodwill.
Surely paying the RFA sailors a competitive remuneration package must be one of the easiest and cheapest problems to fix for the MoD/ HMG?
More concerning is Mounts Bay sailing without Phalanx being fitted. This should not have been allowed to happen.
Unbelievable putting people’s lives at risk by doing this. I really don’t know how they are allowed to do this
Who are you blaming in your post?
If you took away everyone’s freedom to withhold Labour in an industrial dispute in a sector where there was a potential risk of harm you would have a lot of people who would tell the nation which way to shove it.
No phalanx in the Med although not ideal it’s not the end of the world but there is no way she should be sent to the Gulf unless she can be fitted out in Cyprus first? What a lack of forward thinking
Photos show Phalanx installed.
Mounts Bay was the new arrival without CIWS – not in pictures
This is from 2016 but same circumstance – Mounts Bay in eastern Med without CIWS fitted
Don’t forget the plan would be for her to go inshore and undertake the evacuation of U.K. nationals in a war zone. Mounts Bay is also in need of a refit as she sailed before she could complete further maintenance. It is not a good look at all.
The eastern med is iffy we have enemies in the eastern med with Antiship missiles…Hezbollah would possibly take a shot…Hamas have to much to do to be bothered.
The Treasury had two things to sort urgently for MOD when the new government took office: approve a loan guarantee for Haland’s and sort out the RFA pay issues. They did neither and instead have asked the MOD for in-year savings. Makes you wonder if all senior Treasury officials should go through DV clearance.
This budget and defence review will be an eye opener next week.
Every public sector employee is going to be expecting double digit percentage pay rises after seeing the Jnr Dr and Train driver increases and to an extent its harder to argue especially when the navy and army have such a huge shortage in staffing levels.
That means they are going to need to find 10’s of billions in tax rises or there are going to be huge cuts in government spending.
I personally cannot see the 2 Albion, 3 Bays and Argus all being replaced 1 for 1 with the MRSS order. We will be lucky to get 3 slightly improved ships with medical facilities to replace the Bays with Albion and Argus scrapped without replacement.
Train drivers were a multi year agreement , each year wasnt that high, even less when its apportioned for each year eg 5 % over 2019-22
“5% increase for 2019 to 2022, 4.75% for 2022 to 2024, and 4.5% for 2024 to 2025”
Pretty poor attitude to things isn’t it? What gets me is when the buggers in charge (pardon my French) like to give speeches and have their photos taken whenever they like but don’t seem to give others the respect for their role and fair pay that is their due. The RFA is so fundamental to navy ops what stupidity this is in letting this continue. Is it so difficult to fix it? And for goodness sake, arm these RFA ships properly if going into a conflict zone otherwise you might be less a ship and have casualties.
Air Con sub optimal🤣🤣it’s been sub optimal since build on all the Bay Boats, they were designed for the Norway theatre. I recall my cabin not getting below 36 degrees C for my whole 4 months out the Gulf.
Same! I miss those days, but wouldn’t go back now, especially given the sorry state of things.
Australia upgrade thed aircon on Larges Bay / HMAS Choules they almost triple the size of the Aircon
Yes. Would have needed full replacement anyway with modern refrigerants and far more efficient. Upscaling would have been done at same time.
Why not pay rise. Reasonable, logical, inevitable. Just do it.
Even “logistical” too!
Having worked with some of the RFA they are due a proper pay and I don’t blame them for wanting more as they have suffered over the decades. Won’t cost much in the grand scheme of things to give them a much overdue payrise. They are professionals who need retained.
Train drivers earn more than masters and other officers of merchant ships and work less than half the hours. Must be difficult navigating between London and Manchester by rail.
Really ? You know this how.
Train drivers don’t actually navigate you realise, the train’s journey is routed by automated switching….the drivers job is essentially management of energy ( breaking and accelerating ) and reacting to red and green lights and any speed limits on the track..in reality the biggest challenge is ensuring you keep paying attention over a long and lonely shift, they also have to put up with people going splat on the front of their trains which is an occupational hazard.
Why didn’t it go straight to Falmouth ?
Destore.
Portland has an explosives license for loading / Unloading, Falmouth does not.
The other story is this illustrates the ‘wisdom’ of binning off our MCMV force without actually getting the replacements into service….
There was no wisdom it was purely driven by cost pressures. The best MCM capability on the planet dismantled in very short order leaving us with minimal numbers and new relatively untried systems.
All
This article on Navy Lookout is yet another series of prize examples of what the old Chinese proverb called out as being a very-clear-cut case of “the fish rots from the head” (i.e. poor leadeship at the very top of a large organisation).
Kwik-fix solutions, in the very short term, must be to
As WS Churcill used to say: these three points must all be “Action this day”
————————-
In the medium term:
Regads Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
Note 1:
As the New Yorker magazine pointed out at the very start of the internet era:
“On the internet, noboby knows you are a dog (which had a simply great cartoon)”
Generally yes to all your short term points. Apart from point three..and that’s because it’s piss easy to scapegoat one guy because of a system failing…what about if that leader delayed the ship because there was no phalanx available and an operation failed because the ship was not where it was meant to be…significant operational failings are almost never the fault of just one person..they are almost always systemic failures and when you start investing using things like the five whys and Root cause analysis you get to the system failure and not the poor bastard who got stuck with a shitty stick decision in which there are risks all around ( having had to make shitty “life and death” your dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t decisions that you have no real power to avoid…I know it’s not that poor leaders fault).
Maybe time to realise they sacked too many earlier, they need to stop worrying about quotas of martians etc. and that people of 30 really aren’t over the hill and too old to work a ship…. Honestly this no sailors cr*p is bulls**t of the worst order. It’s just the same with teaching…. Short of science teachers yet when someone with a science degree and a science teaching certificate and load of experience applies they don’t interview us, in fact don’t even tell us to go away
PR and HR have taken over the world by stealth.
A friend of mine was a teacher – retrained into a different career later- but would get a better response to his job applications if he used the spelling for his legal name Danni, instead of his usual one Danny.
A rooster in the hen house is too ‘disruptive’