Spain's New S-80 Class Submarines Sink, But Won't Float

New submitter home-electro.com writes "In the era of total CAD and CAM, is it even possible to come up with a fundamentally flawed design ? Turns out, yes. This a fascinating engineering SNAFU. Spain's newly built submarine is 100 tons too heavy, which means it is unable to float. 'Unfortunately for the Spainards, Quartz reports that they have already sunk the equivalent of $680 million into the Isaac Peral, and a total of $3 billion into the entire quartet of S-80 class submarines. If Spain hopes to salvage its submarines, it must either find some weight that can be trimmed from the current design or lengthen the ship to accommodate the excess weight, The Local notes. Though the latter option is more feasible, it is expected to cost Spain an extra $9.7 million per meter.'"

Comments

Government efficiency

[Dunbal]

I think this is a great example of government "efficiency", underlining the fact for all those people who love to carry on about how vital "government spending" is. I simply can't believe that contracts are awarded without any sort of penalty clause that covers errors like this, delays in completion dates, etc. Years ago this would be considered high treason and someone would swing. Now, thanks to corrupt and decadent government, nothing will happen. In fact, the contractor will probably get more contracts.

Re:Government efficiency

[Black Parrot]

I think this is a great example of government "efficiency", underlining the fact for all those people who love to carry on about how vital "government spending" is.

Yeah, because private enterprise never screws up.

Re:Government efficiency

[Dunbal]

When private enterprise screws up it doesn't come out of your pocket. Unless of course you're a shareholder - but then again, you knew there was risk involved in buying shares. When government screws up it comes out of your pocket whether you agree or not. And government screws up a lot more, and a lot bigger, than private companies - they can afford to! There are no consequences.

Re:Government efficiency

[femtobyte]

No, this is a specific example of military-industrial complex "efficiency" --- a particular order that combines the very worst of private monopolistic greed with unaccountable, secretive, wasteful spending. Governments tend to be rather efficient (much more than private markets) at supplying *public goods* like roads, healthcare, education, transportation, infrastructure, utilities, etc. --- things with clear public benefits easily evaluated by the public. Joe Citizen can tell when his roads have potholes, his tapwater tastes like ass, his kids have a lousy school, and he can't get decent medical care; and this will show at the next election. Few people who support increased government spending for public good are also big fans of handing blank checks to the military-industrial complex to build the next generation murder-machine boondoggle; generally, the most enthusiastic supporters of unchecked military spending are the same folks who rail against any publicly beneficial forms of government spending (since they are ideologically committed to proving government is a failure, by making it so whenever they get in power).

Re:Government efficiency

[Dunbal]

Only because government ignored actual laws designed for those situations and decided to make it up as they went along. I have no idea why people let them get away with it.

Re:Government efficiency

[sphealey]

- - - - - When private enterprise screws up it doesn't come out of your pocket. - - - - -

Wall Street called; they need another trillion $ of bailout money. Unmarked 20s straight from the taxpayers' pockets please.

Superfund is another example that comes to mind.

sPh

Re:Government efficiency

[MightyYar]

The concept of a "corporation" is a government-created entity. They even get their charter directly from government. But even if a corporation were some natural entity, the goverment granting them limited liability leads to stuff like superfund sites. When the government has sole authority to issue currency and grant charters to banks, it's hard to blame "private industry" for playing the game the way the government has set them up to play it.

Re:Government efficiency

[berashith]

because the people who got pissed were labeled as right wing conspiracy nutjobs, or dirty lazy hippies. Everyone else either believed those labels, got paid out, or turned a blind eye to the possibility that their political spectrum could actually have a flaw.

Re:Government efficiency

[xdor]

"Too big to fail" is a government determination: not a private one.

Banks are a very poor example: they are only one-step away from government: merely a private extension of the Federal Reserve: a better reflection of poor legislative and financial policy than private lechery.

Don't confuse the free market with entites that live off public taxes and are first in line for public monetary distribution.

comment at the source

[bogolisk]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/J_D_Exposito/spain-submarine-s-81-isaac-peral-cant-float_n_3328683_256066767.html

These are very biased news and in fact they are wrong. For starters, only the first submarine has a floatability problem. The other submarines in the series are larger, therefore they have no problem. Now, why has the fist submarine (the original design) a floatability problem? Because the Navy asked for more equipment (electronic equipment, weapons, etc) and more comfortable cabins for the sailors than originally planned. It is not a design problem but a modifications problem and this is very very very frequent in large projects, especially if military. The changes have been taken into account in the design for the second and subsequent submarines (S81, S82, etc). The first submarine (S80) will be fixed by making it a bit longer and adding some floating aids. Source: I work in this project. Next time you want to say stupid things about very serious projects, please warn us you are drunk.

J D Exposito

Re:comment at the source

[Kijori]

Given the context, it's a fair guess that the person who wrote that is Spanish. Was it really necessary to be nasty about their English?

Re:at least they're trying...

[peragrin]

That's because when Canada does design a ship it costs 100 times that of any other nation.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/05/02/pol-milewski-shipbuilding-design-mystery.html

The design of a ship is costing canada $250 million, when similar vessels designed in Norway were designed for $20 million and built for $80 million

So go ahead and buy the UK and USA scraps it is cheaper.

Re:Where were the checks and balances?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

How does someone in 2013 miscalculate the displacement of seawater?

Probably to 15 decimal places on a workstation with more transistors than the entire world possessed in 1980, along with an entire PPT deck full of pretty renders, and a basic sanity check skipped early in the process...

Re:at least they're trying...

[ChrisMaple]

Taxes are what you pay to live in a civilized society.

Taxes are the extortion I pay not to be jailed or killed by people legally empowered to use guns against the innocent.

Re:at least they're trying...

[cusco]

I take it that you've never attempted to live on minimum wage. Even working full time in the poorest areas of the country minimum wage will not pay for food and housing for one adult and one child. You propose that they need to be paid even LESS? Do you think the debtor's prisons and workhouses should be brought back as well? And I suppose the custom of overtime pay should be done away with as well, right?

Re:at least they're trying...

[cusco]

When my dad went to work at the Traverse City Iron Works in 1965 making fire hydrants guys were pouring iron wearing tennis shoes, jersey gloves and sunglasses. There was no safety equipment, there were no air filters, men lost eyes, fingers, and lungs on a regular basis. Dad was instrumental in bringing the union in, which forced the company to make the needed safety improvements. Perhaps that's nothing to you, but my dad was able to keep his hands and eyes intact and that was a big thing to me. So call me cuckoo.