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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.'"

4 of 326 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Government efficiency by Black+Parrot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  2. comment at the source by bogolisk · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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

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    Bogus
  3. Re:Government efficiency by sphealey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    - - - - - 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

  4. Re:at least they're trying... by peragrin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.