The Tribal-class frigate had fitted to either side of her bridge large decorative Zulu shields which had been presented to her. These had somehow appeared secured to the Sealion’s fin and were unsubtly illuminated by lamps.
Their sighting by the frigate’s watchkeepers caused a flurry of activity and a high-speed rigid raider was dispatched to recover the booty. By the time this reached Sealion she was already outside the harbour mole and her outgoing captain, in no mood to part company with the trophies his warriors had gleaned, took appropriate action. As the fast boat roared alongside, a Royal Marine officer, immaculately dressed in his mess kit, stood up in the stern to plead for the return of the shields, whereupon Sealion’s captain bombarded the boat with potatoes from a bag he had had sent up from the galley. The Zulu detachment repelled, the shields stowed securely away, he disappeared below to his cabin. Here he remained for most of the next three days as Sealion ran north, up the Portuguese coast and headed across the Bay of Biscay. Something of his psychological state of mind, not to say Conley’s confidence, is revealed by the fact that he made no protest when Conley, guying his commander, kept the navigational charts under lock and key. Apparently indifferent to the Sealion’s progress until the diving area was reached in the Bay of Biscay, the wretched man departed without ceremony after speedily handing over to his relief when the boat berthed at Faslane.
With her ‘booze-loving’ commanding officer gone, the Sealion rapidly improved. Cleaner and more efficient, her crew, having undergone many changes, was more competent. The new captain, although initially lacking confidence, was nevertheless a big improvement. The same could not be said for the new first lieutenant, who was exceedingly eccentric, possessed an abrasive temperament and badly lacked management skills. In consequence, the other members of the wardroom, which had also undergone changes and which now included some very capable individuals, drew together like a ‘band of brothers’, supporting each other and developing into a very effective team. In this atmosphere lifetime friendships were formed.
Perhaps most enlivening was the arrival of a new wardroom steward who closely resembled the character of Baldrick, a servant played by Tony Robinson as a foil to the Blackadder of Rowan Atkinson in a the popular television series. Baldrick’s common sense combined with his disreputable appearance producing risible solutions to his master’s frequent plights made him extremely popular. The Sealion’s new wardroom steward displayed equally unsurpassable ingenuity in procuring extras for the wardroom. Many a supply officer of a warship berthed near Sealion must have wondered where their wardroom langoustines, fillet steaks or fresh strawberries had disappeared to, while the recipients of this cunning turned a Nelsonic blind eye.
For the remainder of the commission, Sealion undertook routine submarine work which more often than not involved acting again as the loyal opposition in exercises. Some of these were of large scale, including a NATO exercise in which a dozen merchant ships had been chartered to act as a transatlantic convoy.
The new captain proved somewhat accident-prone; early in his tenure of command Sealion struck the jetty when berthing in Portland harbour, causing it significant damage. He also had a minor collision with a fishing vessel whilst manoeuvring alongside in Funchal, Madeira, and temporarily grounded Sealion on the horseshoe bend in the River Avon on the way up to Bristol for a pre-Christmas visit in December 1968. She was quickly pulled off by the leading tug but in terms of seriousness none of these incidents were to match that of the following spring.
5
A Very Close Call
In March 1969 Sealion was snorting in deep water to the northwest of Ireland at 10 knots, her maximum snorting speed. She was acting as a sonar target for the first of Great Britain’s Polaris-armed nuclear-powered submarines, the SSBN HMS Resolution, then undergoing her ‘first-of-class’ sonar trials. To avoid any possibility of a collision occurring, the two submarines were separated by depth zones, the Resolution running in the deeper of the two and in a position then unknown to Sealion. At about 0030 Sealion’s first lieutenant was about to hand over the watch to Conley and the weapons engineer. The control room was darkened, illuminated by a few dim red lights.
Suddenly, the after planesman reported that his hydroplanes had jammed to ‘full rise’. He immediately transferred the control of the planes to a separate emergency system and applied ‘full dive’ angle to the hydroplanes which remained indicating ‘full rise’. The submarine, however, adopted a severe down angle and increased depth.
The ‘Stop snorting!’ order was rapped out and the control systems watchkeeper urgently went though the tasks of shutting hull valves, lowering masts and — as part of his standard procedure — flooding the snort induction mast with seawater to avoid it being over-pressured. The forward planesman put full rise on his hydroplanes which limited the down angle to about 25 degrees, but he could not counter the effect of the larger and more effective after planes.
Part of the ‘Stop snorting’ drill on Sealion was to empty two small external compensating tanks using high-pressure air to counter the additional weight of water incurred in flooding the snort mast. Unfortunately, the control systems watchkeeper did this with the tank emptying valves shut and the effect of the high-pressure air caused the reliefs on both tanks to lift with a very loud and explosive report. The reliefs vented through the pressure hull into the control room wing bilges and the pulse of high-pressure air from the port relief forced an alarming jet of bilgewater into the control room. In the darkness and confusion of noise, at first it appeared that an explosion had occurred and the pressure hull had been breached. Spray hit the electrical starter of a pump, causing a second violent blast and a flash. This was followed by a major electrical short-circuit which caused the loss of most of the control room instrument illumination.
The runaway Sealion, with a significant bow-down angle, was going deep at speed. Preoccupied by their fight to regain control of the submarine, the two planesmen had failed to shut off their large shallow-water depth gauges. These registered a maximum of 140ft, which Sealion had long since passed, and now their gauge glasses fractured and more seawater sprayed into the control room.
As Sealion left her safe depth and she entered the depth zone of the Resolution beneath her, Conley manned the underwater telephone and broadcast the alarming report: ‘Going deep! Going deep! Out of control!’ Apart from warning the SSBN of their descent, he was determined that if Resolution was within reception range she would be aware that the Sealion was in trouble. There was, however, no response from Resolution; the Sealion headed for the depths out of control and apparently flooding. Unless the dive angle and speed were reduced Sealion would reach her crush depth within two minutes. Amid the terror induced by this prospect, Conley had the curious thought that it was unfair that this was happening before, and not after, impending visits to Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm.