All language subtitles for s01e01 How.to.Build.A.Nuclear.Submarine.Eng

The submarine's huge -
it's 100 metres long,

it's three decks deep.

There is no inch of the submarine
that's similar to another inch of it.

I would definitely put it in
the same league as the Space Shuttle

or projects of that size.

To my mind,
this is a 7,000-tonne Swiss watch.

There's an extraordinary amount
of expertise

in putting one of
these submarines together.

There are stages when
it's like blacksmithing

and there are stages when
it's like brain surgery.

The team I've got have been working
together for over 20-odd years.

I mean, we're used to a lot heavier.
This is a baby.

I'll be fully qualified in September
2010, which is really daunting -

being able to say, "I will
be a qualified electrician."

I'm in charge
of purchasing submarines

for the Ministry of Defence
and it's my job to make sure

that the programmes that we're
hearing from the company

are sensible and real and we're
getting value for money out of them.

This is number one seagate.

At the moment,
she's laying down in the recess.

We're unable to shut the gate
and make this area non-tidal.

It's obviously quite a serious thing
when a 380-tonne gate

has collapsed on the bottom.

It's a big, big
engineering challenge.

Without that gate in place,
this submarine will not leave
Barrow.

This is a key point for
the Royal Navy, bringing Astute out.

If I get that wrong, I'm certainly
aware of the amount of scrutiny
that will be coming down on me.

Anthony, my son, he said,
"What do you do, Daddy?"

He said, "I build submarines
for the Queen."

It's a wet and windy weekend
in the middle of November.

And the first new British submarine
to be built for ten years

is now preparing to sail out
into the open sea

for the very first time.

Is my cap badge in the middle?
Yes. You're perfect!

Good. Because often it's round there.

14 years in the making

and costing over £1 billion,

she is one of
the most technologically advanced
machines in the world.

She's a world-class submarine,

in her sense of technology
underwater and above water,

the weapons she can carry to sea

that attack not only ships,
but the land targets.

She's an awesome vessel.

Impressive as she is,

her final exit into the open sea
is not going to be an easy one.

Much of Britain has experienced
the worst storms of the year,

with strong winds and heavy rain

causing flooding and damage
across the country.

We have very strict criteria for
making sure we have a safe exit.

And the rain only affects
the visibility on the day.

It's the wind that matters.

This is the story

of how one of the world's
most complicated machines is built.

And the people that build it.

It's about five to seven
and I'm going to work.

I've been in the Navy
almost 30 years now

and I've spent probably, literally,
about 15 years underwater
in submarines.

It's the start
of a typical working day

for the people who build
Britain's nuclear submarines.

There is a lot of people that
I know that work in the yard.

Obviously there's Ged, my husband.
My sister-in-law works in there.

My brother-in-law works in there.
My brother works in there.

I would say every family
that I know,

at least one or two people
actually work in the yard.

Barrow-in-Furness is a town
of 62,000 people

on the edge
of the English Lake District.

The town has an amazing history
of building submarines,

launching its first in 1887.

It only takes me about
ten minutes, if that, to get to work.

And generations of the same
families from all around the area

still build them today.

I'm just swiping on.

This is electronic timekeeping to
make sure we're in at the right time
and not late.

The capability of our submarines
is something that we want
to keep to ourselves,

because if other countries, other
organisations, know the capability
of the units we operate,

then they can develop ways
of defeating that capability.

So that's why we're very careful
about who comes on this site

and also what information
we're allowed to give as well.

The current owner of the shipyard is
British defence company BAE Systems.

The business employs
over 35,000 people across the UK,

with around 5,000 of them
in Barrow alone.

BAE Systems is not
without its critics.

But in this town,
the company forms the very
backbone of the local economy.

We have extraordinary numbers
of people working here,

with all sorts of family
relationships. And the business has

a real family feel to it as well. We
play a vital part in the community.

A lot of salaries and money
goes back into the community
through our shipyard.

Britain's need for
submarines splits opinion.

Some think they're critical
for defence,

others that they're a waste
of taxpayers' money.

But with a potential order book
of seven Astute submarines,

Barrow depends on them to prosper
into the next decade and beyond.

This is the only site in the UK where
we design, build, test and commission

nuclear submarines
for the Royal Navy.

Britain's current fleet of attack
submarines are coming to the end
of their working lives,

and the Royal Navy are desperate to
get their hands on this new class.

One of the world's most
technologically advanced machines,

they pack weaponry, life support and
all the sensitive equipment

a submarine needs to operate -

including a nuclear reactor that
will power its engine for 25 years

and never need refuelling.

At almost £1 billion,
this submarine doesn't come cheaply.

Or quickly.

The submarines take years to
manufacture. But what we do have

on-site here are four submarines
in various stages of their build.

The first one is afloat,
outside the Devonshire Dock Hall.

The second submarine is behind me.
The third submarine
is just about whole.

We've got a few more units
to weld together.

And the fourth submarine is,
at the moment,

in a series of units being
outfitted.

So you can look around the site here
and see from first rolling the steel

to actually operating the systems
and preparing to go to sea.

Building four boats with
a staggered production schedule,

the range of skills needed
on site is extraordinary.

The people here are unique -
in not only what they do,

but how they do it.

I'm just changing into my overalls.

I have to wear them so you don't
cut yourself or hurt yourself.

But they're not very flattering,
to say the least.

I work on that boat.
Boat two, Ambush.

This one closer to us is boat three.

We're going down there,
to the toolbox talk.

That's Nige, the team leader.

Morning, Nige.

Erin Browne will be trained
in the electrical systems

of the submarine and is one of only
300 electricians on the build.

When she's qualified,
she'll be part of a very elite
and highly-skilled club.

That was our toolbox talk. We have
one every morning at half-past seven,

telling us any health and safety
issues from the day before,

any communications - basically
keeping us in touch with what's
going on around the yard.

The whole site covers 169 acres,

making it Britain's biggest
shipyard.

And as a hub of high technology,

nuclear submarines aren't
just built in Barrow -
they're designed here, too.

The submarine is designed to operate
in a very hostile environment,

which is under the sea,
at pressure.

It's a salty environment -
it wants to corrode.

At the same time, it has
to keep its crew of 97 crew safe

for about a three-month period
without surfacing.

So it has to make its own air, its
own water, carry its own food.

It has to operate as
a war-fighting machine as well.

The submarine has to be able
to withstand underwater strikes
and explosions.

And so computer simulations put
the hull through extreme testing,

to ensure it will
keep its crew safe if attacked.

With around 600 people involved
in the design process alone,

this is one of the largest
concentrations of such expertise
in the world.

This is the most complex submarine
we've ever built.

It's got 250,000 miles' worth
of cable onboard the boat.

It's got something like about
25,000 valves.

We have to produce more than
100,000 drawings,

so all the drawings originate from
our computer-aided model.

It took four years
to design the Astute,

which will contain more than
a million individual components.

Designed on a computer,

but built by hand.

My job is steelwork team leader.

I started off as a shipwright in 1982

and worked my way
up through the business.

I've been in this shop now
for about 12 years.

This is the place where
all the submarines start out life.

This is where the raw plates
come in by road.

The wagons back into the shop,

the magnet crane removes them
and puts them into the piles.

Using a plasma cutting machine,

each plate has carefully designed
patterns burnt into them.

When each plate comes off
the burning machine,

what we do, we leave
a small stitch of metal,

which stops all the individual pieces
falling out on the floor.

Peter, the burner, what he's
doing now is cutting through
all the little stitches

so the piece parts will fall out.

They all go where they need to be,
to be built in the right time,
just like a massive Airfix model.

The steel that makes the hull

is shaped and rolled until
the massive sections are completed.

Peel away the special coating
and the pressure hull is simply
a watertight tube,

capped at both ends with tanks
that fill with water,

to help it dive and surface.

And finally,
there's a fin section on top.

The hull is made of eight separate
steel sections,

each around 11 metres in diameter.

The boat is 97 metres long and
when finished, weighs 7,400 tonnes.

The huge sections are made
in a different part of the yard

and when completed, need to be
transported down a public road

to the building where the vessel
is actually put together.

At 260 metres long,

58 metres wide
and 51 metres tall,

this building is one
of Britain's biggest sheds.

This is the DDH, which stands for
Devonshire Dock Hall.

The submarines are built in here
because it's where
all the top-secret stuff is,

where people can't see, so it's
housed and it's hidden. It's where
the magic happens, I suppose.

The Astute is the first class
of British submarine

in which
sections are worked on vertically.

This allows easy access
for the team,

before the section is turned
the right way up, or ship-wise.

Right. What we've got
is a unit like this.

We'll lower it down

till it's on its two turning shoes
at the far end there.

What we'll then do is rig Frank
up to the shop crane up here.

He'll start turning
it over like this,

so it's rolling
on the two turning shoes.

My job is just a second set
of eyes, just to make sure

that everything runs smoothly.

I'm the appointed person,
if anything goes wrong,

it's me that gets it in the neck.

We're at a critical stage
now in this turn

where we've transferred the weight
of the unit onto the mobile crane.

The mobile crane
is holding the load.

We're now going to
derig the shop crane and

rerig it onto these eyeplates
on this lower side of the unit.

It's a critical point now. If
either of these two cranes fail...

Well, I wouldn't like to be
standing here. I'll put it that way.

A submarine packs in three
times more machinery
and equipment than any surface ship.

But most of the back of the boat is
taken up with the nuclear reactor,

the engine and all the
different back-up systems.

We're now in
the diesel generator space.

Should we lose a reactor at sea,
then we would rely on these
diesel engines to provide

the electrical power for
running the minimum of equipment
that we need to live as human beings.

If you really need them at sea,
then it's a bad hair day
and you've got some problems, yeah.

For a submarine to
operate effectively,
it has to be virtually undetectable.

To do this, machinery is isolated
from shocks, noise and vibration.

This mounting here is an example
of how you decouple
the noise or the vibration

generated from the diesel engine here
from a sensitive piece of equipment.

You can see here
that this allows this
piece of equipment to move.

We expect the Astute class
to be one of the,

if not THE
quietest submarine in the world.

One of the reasons for that is
the technology we employ on here

to prevent the vibration
being transmitted to the hull.

MUSIC: "The Blue Danube"

Today, boat three is taking shape
as some of her biggest sections
are moved into position.

Submarines take on water
to help them dive.

And a lot of it
comes into the streamlined 270 tonne
forward end construction.

This unit also houses
the submarine's sonar equipment.

Active sonar works by emitting
a pulse of sound and then calculates

the amount of time it takes to hit
an object and bounce back, which
determines the distance.

But the Astute
will normally use passive sonar,

which simply listens to the sea
to detect and identify objects.

It's claimed this technology
is sensitive enough to hear a boat

leaving New York harbour
from Southampton.

The other end of the submarine
is capped with the after-end
construction.

Weighing in at around 230 tonnes,
this also takes on water
when the submarine dives and

houses the mechanisms
that control the submarine's rudder
and propeller shaft.

My name is Derek Parker and I work
for Production Services team.

We're in charge
of all major movements in the DDH.

Do all the heavy lifting,
do all the shipping of modules

and moving all the units.

We're setting up now ready
to move the aft-end construction

up to the after dome.

There's four transfer cars.

They can actually pick up
up to 250 tonnes per car.

We're moving 39 metres

and it's a metre a minute it travels.

Everything's away, so...

we're ready for this.
We're ready to go then, boys.

Green button. Let's go. Thank you.

The team I've got
have been working together

for over 20-odd years,

so they know the system inside out.

I mean, we're used to a lot heavier.

We're used to something
like 600 tonne,

putting it together against
another unit. This is a baby.

This is a little baby!

As we get six foot off the unit,
we have to put people inside.

So we bring more people in
cos we've got to watch
as we go up towards the dome,

so that we don't hit that unit.

As you can see, we've only
got three inches to go now.

Now we're going to go on
an inch button, where we can do it
an inch at a time.

Inch it up, Tony.
That's right, mate.

Just the last inch, now, boys.

That's it. Thank you.

We can't do more
with the transfer system,
that's as close as we get it.

And it's within half an inch.

It's gone well.

One of the biggest
and most complicated areas
of the submarine

is the command deck -
the nerve centre of the boat,

built as a separate module
in another part of the shipyard.

The command deck module is 22 metres
long and weighs 180 tonnes.

It contains the navigational
controls, sonar, communications
and weapons systems.

The captain's cabin is on
the top deck, while the second deck

is where food is prepared
and the crew eat, sleep and relax.

We put all the the combat
system together here,

make it talk to each other
and then the boat, the CDM,
gets fleeted from here

down to the submarine,
then set back in the submarine.

This is called the sonar cab space.

Various equipment in here -
the processing for the sonar,

for the networks,
for the command systems.

I'll show you the sound room.

This is where the sonar sets up.

This is all the command system.

All the sonars and all the other
equipment on board

pass all their information
across to these desks.

OK, carrying on aft, this is
the commanding officer's cabin.

Again, at the moment,
it's pretty bare.

The captain is the only man
onboard who has a cabin to himself.

He's the sole occupant of this one.

This is the lower deck of the CDM,
which is mainly accommodation.

There's 19 bunks in this space -
quite cramped.

But nothing different to what
submariners are used to and
have been used to for many years.

When I was in the Navy,
all we had was a bunk light.

Nowadays, they have iPod chargers,
they have all sorts.

OK, coming to the after-end
of the command deck now,

we have both the junior rates'
and the senior rates' messes.

This is where they live when
they're off watch as well.

And the final compartment
is the galley.

Or the kitchen.

It's got every possible
modern convenience.

Everything. I don't know -
it's got more than my kitchen has!

There's a little bit
of finishing off still to do,

but we're not far off completion,
whereby this will then be transported

down to the DDH
and slotted into the submarine.

Once the units are fully fitted out,
they can be joined together.

We're going right through this unit
into the next unit, and we're going
to go down the tank.

A job for the welding team.

There's always one squad on nights,
one squad on days.

We will be on the job
until it's finished.

It's hard work. I'm on my second
T-shirt now. I'm sweating.

I'm tired. I'm going to be here till
about 7 o'clock tonight. So...

We all have a section each.
Start at the same time, finish
at the same time, more or less.

Hopefully, the results are all
the same - the welding's good.

Compared to some of the spaces on
this submarine, this space is big.

This is my job down here.

I've got to crawl down this gap
on this ladder to get down.

The job will take over two
kilometres of welding to complete,

so the team will have to work
in unison,

with accuracy being key to ensure
the units are in perfect alignment.

Other side of that bulkhead
is the nuclear reactor.

To the right, the command deck module
goes in this side.

This is my gun. Press the trigger
and the gas comes out first.

Then you let go of the trigger.

The wire obviously feeds out
with the power going through it.

If you get too hot or get too dry
a mouth or lose too much fluid,
you've got to come out.

Heat-wise, it's the same everywhere.

It's extremely hot
wherever you are, as you can see.

It is hot. It's hard work,
it is a hard job to do.

It will take eight welders working
day and night shifts

three weeks to join just two parts
of the submarine together.

And the tanks they work in can reach
temperatures of up to 130 degrees.

On a job like this,
we'll be doing miles of welding.

Absolutely.

We used coils of wire and I think
they hold about about 10lb of wire.

We can put one or two of them in
in a shift, easy.

So...there's a lot of welding
involved.

I take pride in my work.
I think a lot of the welders do.

It's a bit of a challenge
now and again, so, yeah.

Bit of a challenge with each other
as well.

When you're welding,
it's got to be right.

We have a bit of a laugh over it -

bit of a dig at each other - so you
take pride in your work that way.

Ged's worked in the yard

for about 25 years now.

He left school when he was 16
and went straight into the yard.

Left in the June
and went in the September.

I like it because I think
it's permanent, it's stable.

You know, he's got a good job there

and he's home from work
within five minutes.

A welder's a very, very manual job.
Very dirty.

And he has to get into some sort of
tight spots that I certainly
couldn't get into, so...

Once the welding is finished inside,
the team move to the outside
of the hull to complete the job.

It's quite an important job.

If anything goes wrong with the job,

it goes on my record.
I did my first one of these aged 18.

I think I'm the youngest one
to do one.

Quite proud of it as well, really.

This is finished now.
They'll crack-detect it.

Then it'll get ultrasonic tested,

which is just like a baby scan,
really.

You put jelly on it,
put a probe over it.

Just to make sure there's no
muck or defects in the metal.

Then they'll X-ray it just to further
check it again. Just to make sure.

There's lives at risk,
so it's got to be right.

Where there is a join,

there is usually a weakness.

But in the case of the Astute,

the metal used by the welders
is actually stronger than the hull.

This innovative work is done
on-site by a team of scientists
and engineers.

In the mechanical test area,

there are various pieces of equipment
and techniques

which allow us to characterise
the way materials behave,

such as tensile testing,
which we use to pull material apart.

Or impact testing.

When two sections of the submarine
are joined together,

we will have specified the materials
that have been joined together.

We will have developed the process
which joins the material together.

And we will have assessed the
suitability of the material that goes
into joining the two pieces together.

Boat two is ready to be outfitted.

The vessel will eventually contain
over one million components,

which includes 23,000 pipes
and over 100 kilometres
of electrical cabling.

Just going to go
into the workshop now -

go see Carl and see what
the plan of action is for today.

With a maximum of 290 people allowed
onboard boat two at any one time,

the different teams
need to work together.

They will literally
build her by hand.

The job that we're doing today is
going to be in the captain's cabin,

so it's quite a small compartment.

Just been to the PAM cabin to get
our PAMs - personal air monitors.

We need them for gases or if
there's a gas leak, such as argon.

Argon's really dangerous.
They say two lungfuls and
it kills you straightaway. So, nasty!

Before we go onboard,
the last thing we've got to do
is swipe on with our passes.

That's just so they know how
many people are onboard,

so that if there's a fire, they know
how many people to get off-board.
Things like that.

Erin is one of 500 apprentices and
graduates working in the shipyard.

Apprentice schemes all over Britain
are now being reintroduced,

to stop the decline
of traditional skills.

And this is especially essential
for the survival of Barrow.

This is the captain's cabin space.
Ooh!

This is a call signal station.

So if the power goes
down on the boat and you
can't contact other areas,

this will have a handset on it.

So it's like a wind-up phone.

Apprentices always work with
someone already qualified,

known as a journeyman.

I basically get a step-by-step
guide through how to do something

until I've learned - until I'm
confident I can do it myself,

and then I do them on my own. But
I've never done one of these before,
so Carl'll tell me what to do.

These cables are going to be going
into the tops of the terminals,

which are connected to
the bottoms of the terminals.

All these colours go up the side and
then they're all connected in there.

We've got blue and black,
red and black, then there's
three white and black ones.

We'll be able to work out on
the drawing which one goes where.
So just them ones?

Yeah.

What next? Three and four.

These are the first submarines
we've built for ten years and a lot
of the skills have been lost.

We had a spell with no apprentices
coming through.
We've had to start it up again.

If you didn't have apprentices,
you'd be struggling in the future.

This is the big employer
of the town.

We need this to keep going.

Good? All right. Yeah.

Sorted.

Erin did well.
She looked at it, she did well.

Nice and neat. So, good job.
We opened it and there's

loads of terminals and I thought,
"Looks complicated."

But once I read the drawing and
understood it, it was pretty easy.

While the teams continue
to finish the inside,

a very special process
is beginning on the outside.

The surface of the boat is covered
with around 40,000 rubber tiles,

designed to make the boat
almost invisible.

The rubber absorbs and
then breaks up enemy sonar waves,

stopping the signal returning and
giving the Astute's position away.

This rubber blanket
also gives added sound insulation,

making the submarine even quieter.

Each submarine will spend
around five years inside
the Devonshire Dock Hall,

before being removed and
lowered into the dock outside
by a massive ship lift,

capable of handling vessels
weighing more than 16,000 tonnes.

Once in the Wet Dock,

the submarine can be
fine-tuned and finished.

Coming on!

Stop! Unlocked.

The weapons storage department,

or torpedo room, is where weapons
are loaded, stored and fired from.

The Astute is armed with
Spearfish torpedoes, that have

a range of over 65 kilometres
and weigh two tonnes each,

and Tomahawk cruise missiles,

able to accurately hit targets
more than 1,000 kilometres inland.

However, as an attack submarine,
the Astute is not built to carry

the controversial
Trident missile system.

Today, the crew are engaging
in a war-game exercise,

to test that all the equipment
is talking to each other correctly.

The plan today is to run
three scenarios.

These scenarios will test
all aspects of the system,

both, er, physically

and the crew as well.
It will test them as well.

OK, listen up, guys.
This is your brief. Your task.

You've been allocated a patrol area
in the Norwegian Sea

with an assigned role
of surveillance
and intelligence gathering.

Patrol the area and attempt
to covertly trail

any deploying submarines
which you detect and classify.

You are to maintain
a fire control solution at all times
whilst on the trail.

If you detect the Delta Four
preparing for a weapon firing,

you are to conduct a simulated
Spearfish engagement,

including water shots
to ensure counter-detection.

You have two hours and 30 minutes
to save the world.

Dangerous submarine contact.

The control room up here is where
we prepare the fire control solution
for firing a weapon

and then down below in the weapon
stowage compartment, or bomb shop,

that's where we actually
fire the weapons from.

It's simulating the submarine
being used for what it's intended.

Classified Oscar.

'Stand by Spearfish attack, track
35 is targeting Classified Oscar.

'From two tube.'

Valid active contact.

Valid active contact. Weapon two.

DISTORTED SPEECH OVER RADIO

The command system uses
its various algorithms

to work out where we think
the target's going to be.

And then once we've got a good fire
control solution on the target,

we'll try and fire a weapon at it.

Valid active contact bearing 146,
range 10,700 yards.

That is the target. Continue the
attack. Roger. Continue the attack.

Starboard fire. Track 35.

Starboard fire. Track 35.

Weapon is in weapon mode.

It's gone very well.
I think the crew were very impressed

and certainly,
our team were very impressed.

We all worked very hard. It's been
a very long day. I think we've all
got something out of this.

With the command deck
fully operational,

the last major engineering feat to
overcome is also the most difficult.

The submarine's nuclear reactor
will need to be switched on.

Safety is the first priority.

And the people of Barrow
need to be prepared for the unlikely
event of a nuclear accident.

SIREN WAILS

This is the first time
in ten years since we've last
operated a nuclear reactor.

There are plans that have been
put in place by the civil authorities
that we've signed up to.

There's a lot of eyes watching
how we do our business here.

There's a lot of auditing done
on a very regular basis.

So, yes, we're watched
and very open in what we do here.

Doesn't bother me. It's just part of
the town and part of my growing up.

If there's an emergency,
they will sound that buzzer.

If you hear that buzzer going,
you know there's something wrong.

The shipyard send out leaflets -

what to do in an emergency.

An innocuous looking
packet of tablets.

These tablets are there
to protect your thyroid.

But we've never had a nuclear
emergency in all those years,

so, why worry? I think what people
worry about round here

is where the next shilling's coming
from to buy the tea.

STEEL DRUMS PLAY "In The Mood"

For a town that's been building
nuclear submarines for 50 years,

testing the warning systems
is just a routine event and
doesn't interrupt everyday life.

Usually I'm wearing big
blue overalls, nice and baggy.

But you can't have a carnival
without all the sparkles.

This is obviously a lot
sparklier and a lot more colourful!

It's nice to be able to come out
of work and have a different life.

You have to have
a different personality to be able
to get on with the guys.

But it's good to come and have
a little break from it.

I don't miss out on any
of the girlie stuff,

because I see these twice a week.

What do you think about me working
in the yard? I think it's cool!

Why is it cool?
Because you can fix my plugs.

That's all I'm good for, is it?
Fixing your plugs!

Landing is fine,
land at your discretion.

The wind 180, four knots.

'Roger that.'

As the summer turns into the autumn,

boat one is nearing the end
of its testing phase

and closer to having
its reactor switched on.

So it's now coming under close
scrutiny by the man charged with

ensuring the vessel is safe
and ready to be delivered
to the Royal Navy.

It's all kind of coming together.
Right. Thank you.

We're going to test everything.

Cooking a curry and lasagne.

We're going to serve it to
an admiral in about an hour's time.

Um, passes first.

I've been on two different types
of submarines

and this is the biggest galley
I've ever been on.
It's absolutely massive.

The admiral has come to hear
first-hand how close they are to
switching the nuclear reactor on

and taking the submarine to sea.

Hello. How do you do?
Hello, Coxswain.

Generally, just a normal working
environment, it's not bad at all.

It's not so hot that
you can't work in it.

Where are we having lunch? Here?
In here, sir. Good.

Him having a bit of dinner is a bit
of a bonus for him. I'm keen to hear
what it's like at grassroots level.

The main priority is just to
make sure everything works and
we can actually work in here.

Which other defects have emerged that
give you a sense that we're going
to have a tricky month ahead of us?

I'm in charge
of purchasing submarines
for the Ministry of Defence.

It's my job to make sure
that the purchasing operation

is well-founded

and that we're...

That the programmes that
we're hearing from the company

are sensible and real and we're
getting value for money out of them.

And wrestling the boat from the dock,
that sounds like an negative thing,

but wrestling the boat out of
the hands of the dockyard that have
loved it is what we do.

After his inspection and discussions
with the crew,

Admiral Lister needs to take
his findings to the managers
of the shipyard.

We have meetings with Admiral
Lister at least once a fortnight.

We had originally hoped to be
ready to go to sea late summer.

We're a little bit later
than that now.

We've had no fundamental issues,
but we have had some minor teething
problems and difficulties.

Nothing major, but a few obstacles
that we've had to overcome.

The meeting will last
late into the night.

Obviously, we're interested in your
reflections on the visit on the boat
we've just done.

Then I wouldn't mind quickly going
through the agenda for tomorrow,
to make sure we've got that done.

Right.
In terms of technical progress,

where you've handed over
compartments, they're impressive.

The wardroom and the junior rates
are very good indeed.

The people who've fitted them
out should be congratulated.

Overall, though, I'd have
expected you to make more progress
in handover.

My quiz to Alan and Paul
as they showed me round was,

"Why haven't you moved on
more than this?"

And they were telling me they've
been clearing defects like
nobody's business.

Yeah, the word "defects"
is something we've debated.

In the construction industry,
I think they use the word
"snagging".

I know in the US, they use the word
"unsats" - unsatisfactories.

We use the word defects. Anything
that doesn't comply with the
requirements or the specification.

So the vast majority of
defects are pretty modest. They're
things like paint spills,

tally plates missing, chips in
varnish. Those sorts of things.

That's my challenge to you. Is this
going at the pace that we need it?

We need this submarine.
We absolutely need this submarine.

It's hugely frustrating - not just
for me, but for the whole company.

We really do want to see Astute
go to sea. We want to show
what a capable submarine it is.

The Astute is almost four years late
on its delivery

and estimated to be overspent
by around £800 million.

BAE Systems inherited some
of these problems back in the 1990s,

before they owned the company.

Design and contractual issues
hampered the early stages
of the project

and apprentice schemes had been
stopped, which meant skills were
being lost from an aging workforce.

In 1999, when they took over
the shipyard,

BAE Systems had to implement
new design technology and
reintroduce the apprentice scheme.

Only now is the first of seven
vessels about to be delivered
to the Royal Navy.

What drew me to the submarine
service,

particularly as an engineer,
was the nuclear aspect.

I find it quite fascinating
that we can produce so much energy

for a submarine
all in such a small tube,

going around the world
for months at a time.

Doing things that people
don't necessarily know about.

I'm a keen biker.
It's a beautiful ride in.

The Lake District is
my favourite place in the country.

And living in Bardsey, it's
a beautiful little village as well,

with some special attractions.

Commander Paul Knight
is overseeing the nuclear reactor
being switched on -

the last job before
the boat can leave the dock.

The design of our
reactor is confidential.

We don't want to let the design out

because it does give indications
of the performance of the submarine.

And also, the technology
that's behind it is obviously
valuable to the nation,

and we wouldn't want to share it
with other nations.

You take the reactor critical
by taking the control rods
out of the reactor core.

It starts off very low power,

producing a power which you can
barely light a light bulb with,

all the way up to full power, which
is obviously a confidential figure.

I can't tell you.

But is enough really to power a city
the size of Southampton, really,

is the comparison we make.

It's the first time in ten years

a nuclear reactor has been
switched on anywhere in the UK.

But the people of Barrow
take it in their stride -

including former shipbuilders
who've seen it all before.

It's just an everyday occurrence
for us.

Not that it happens every day
or every week.

It only happens at the tail-end
of the build of a submarine.

There's never been an accident.
The things are totally safe.

Hopefully. Touch wood.

It is a bit of a strange thing
to be used to, obviously.

It's summat you grow up with in
the town. Yeah, I-I-I can't see...

There's nothing to be frightened of.

We're all doomed, sir!

It's Saturday morning,

September 5th, and we're
starting power range testing today.

Good morning.

It's just a day like
any other in Barrow.

But inside the shipyard, the reactor
is carefully being switched on
and monitored by nuclear engineers.

OK.

We've started. That's good.

That's the first time we've taken
a new design of a reactor critical

on a submarine for ten years as well,
so it's a very big milestone -

not only for the Astute project,
but also for the UK as a whole.

The design of the reactor
is top secret,

but there are some elements
that are unclassified.

It's protected by special shielding

that weighs around 100 tonnes and
protects the crew from radiation.

It's fuelled with an incredibly
radioactive substance,
enriched uranium.

When the reactor is started up
for the first time, a neutron is
fired at a uranium atom.

That uranium atom splits, or
fissions,

releasing energy and
freeing more neutrons

that trigger the same process
of splitting in surrounding
uranium atoms.

Once this chain reaction
becomes self-sustaining,

the reactor is said to be critical
and is generating an enormous
amount of heat.

Once we've ensured the design
is correct, the instrumentation
is correct,

we then move up in power
in gradual steps,

resulting in, in two weeks' time,
full power operations.

The huge amount of energy
the reactor is creating
is used to heat water.

The water, under extremely high
pressure,

which prevents it from boiling,
passes a heat exchanger,

which contains another circuit
of water at a much lower pressure.

This water DOES boil
and creates steam.

The steam drives turbines and
the turbines generate
all the power the submarine needs.

The Astute is, in part,
an old-fashioned steam engine -

though coupled with
21st-century nuclear technology.

Yeah, it's been not just a tough
week - it's been a tough few months,
really, getting here.

Yeah, definitely. It's a relief,
I guess, for a lot of people
who've worked very, very hard.

And fingers crossed,
it should all go smoothly

and we're one step closer
to exiting Barrow

and taking the submarine to sea and
handing it over to the Royal Navy.

But as that moment gets closer,

an unexpected and unforeseen
obstacle appears from nowhere.

And this one could stop the
submarine leaving Barrow altogether.

This is number one seagate,
a flap gate by design.
It's rather like a drawbridge.

At the moment, she's laying down
in the recess.

We're unable to shut the gate
and make this area non-tidal.

The submarine only has a certain
amount of time to get from
the dock to the deep water.

And without the gate, this timing
is next to impossible to control,

meaning the Astute's exit
would become a huge gamble.

The only way we can take
the submarine out now,
with one gate out of operation,

is to time it precisely
such that we're in the lock

at the right height of tide and
then take her straight out to sea.

You then have to accelerate
the exit speed through the channel.

You'd be doing handbrake spins
round the corner. It's just
not something we would consider.

With the risk of grounding
the submarine a serious one,

the only choice is to raise
the lock gate from the seabed -

and although the gate is actually
owned by Barrow's Port Authority,

everybody agrees to work together
to find out why it isn't working.

And then hopefully fix it.

With daylight,
the fault is clearly evident.

This is the side one where you
can see a crack on the north side.

On the far side, this actually
sheered off completely.

It's a big pain, yes.
It's a lot of work.

It's a mammoth task -
the gate is over 20 years old -

but a team of engineers will have
to figure out a way to fix it.

We do want the nuclear submarine
going out and so we have a very
vested interest

in getting this gate
up and running and operable.

It's been a few weeks now
since you guys have been in town.

The gate has moved on significantly
from where we were three weeks ago.

The main issue we had was the fact
that this bracket here had failed.

When we recovered the gate,

we weren't given an awful lot of
surprise in terms of

the extent of the work.
We have fitted initial brackets
to the structure,

basically just to make the structure
a bit more integral.

The gate may be fixed,
but the job isn't over.

It's no easy task to re-install
the 324-tonne piece of steel.

It's about the same position it was
in when we took it out about two
and a half months ago.

It's a drawbridge-action gate.

Four times a day, it's cycled -
on each tide.

It's operated from the winch-house,
which is located just behind.

For the next two days, divers and
engineers will work around the clock
to hit their deadline...

Without that gate in place, this
submarine will not leave Barrow.

..until it's back where it belongs.

It's gone very close to programme
and most programmes slip quite a lot.

But this one hasn't slipped too much
and today's the big day.
It is a big sigh of relief.

With the gate back in place
and the dock fully functional,

there's nothing left to stop the
Astute from finally leaving Barrow.

Except the weather. And the events
of the last few months mean the
warm summer is a distant memory.

She will be sailing in November.

Commander Andy Coles,
the captain of the boat,
is preparing his crew for the exit.

We're just doing the final
preparations and final checks,
ready to sail tomorrow.

I'll show you as much as I can
within the bounds of legality.

Welcome onboard.

Just come this way, please.

We're in the centre
of the control room

and in front of me,
I've got ship control.

To the left, I've got the sonar
and to the right, the combat system.

This is where I sit and when
I'm not here, where the officer
of the watch sits.

And this is my cabin.
This is where I sleep and work.

So I spend my time between
the control room and here.

I have screens here which show me
the tactical picture and I can see
what's going on on the periscope.

I'm now converting my chair into
the bunk, where I sleep at night.

I've got communications right next to
me and everything's been aligned up
so it's above the level of the bunk,

so in bed when they call me,
I can see everything from bed.
So it's quite good.

You can tell what day of
the week it is by the food.

For example, you always have
fish and chips on a Friday.

And you get to look forward
to those nights as well.

Get all the ugly ones out.
This is the senior rates' mess.

If you'd like to follow me.

OK. This is the senior rates' mess.

This is one of the three
messes we have onboard.

On the other side of the corridor,
the junior rates' mess -

exactly the same, but this is for
the junior rates.

It's a little more homely now.

We've gone nice chairs and more
comfortable living arrangements.

It's got a PlayStation, Xbox,
big telly, media centre,

and it's just coming together now,
so we're all ready to go to sea
in all respects.

I think you have to have a certain
temperament to be a submariner.

You have to be able to get on
with people and work in
a very small space.

We don't tend to be quite
so clipped and so formal
as other areas of the Navy.

It's just a matter of the environment
we live in. The senior rates live in
two different mess decks.

This is one of them. We utilise
the maximum amount of space,

using three racks on either side.

Each man has at least one locker,

and underneath each bunk
is stowage as well.

But we're experts at living on
the minimum amount of clothing.

We're up on the forward navigation
position, commonly known as
the bridge on the submarine.

As you can see, we get a very
good view from here.

It's even more precise, I think,
than being on the bridge of a ship

because you can feel the elements
working with you or against you.

You're able to take action
against them quickly.

Tomorrow represents
a really key point for us,

which is the move away from this dock
down to Ramsden Dock and so

therefore with the tugs' assistance,
we'll be going through that bridge
and down to Ramsden Dock tomorrow.

Clearly trying to sail in mid
November is a risk with the weather.

And the weather forecast over
the next two days is not ideal.

We've already got a freshening wind
which we can feel in our hair now.

It's going to get stronger over
the next 24 hours.

But everybody's attention is on us at
the moment. This is a key point for
the Royal Navy, bringing Astute out.

I get that wrong, I'm certainly aware
of the amount of scrutiny that will
be coming down on me.

It's November the 14th, 2009.

And the first new British
submarine for 10 years

is about to sail out into the
open sea for the very first time.

Originally planned for the summer,
the submarine's last hurdle to exit

is the uncertainty
of the British weather.

Submarines manoeuvre extremely well
underwater.

But on the surface, they're not
quite so good at manoeuvring,
so we need some tug assistance.

They're going to bring alongside
four very powerful tugs

and then we will manoeuvre the
submarine through the lock system,

under the Michaelson Road Bridge,
round to Ramsden Dock
in preparation for exit.

There has been a lot of effort
from everyone involved here.

It's been fraught with interesting
conversations and emotions
that have come out.

The crew are ready,
the tugs are ready.

The wind has finally dropped. So
we've got one window of opportunity
before it starts getting dark.

So, it's a good day.

It's quite narrow here -

it's 28 metres wide - so it is quite
a challenging thing.

You can see the challenge to be able
to get through this narrow gap.

We've been eating, drinking,
breathing the submarine

and getting it ready
for this moment.

Now that we can step back and watch
it go through,

it's really a great moment,
actually.

It's something that the country
should be really proud of.

The first time that we've launched
a new submarine out of here
for ten years.

It's a hell of an achievement,
actually.

The whole process
will take two days,

but at 9:15
on Sunday 15th November,

the gate holding back the sea
has been safely lowered

and the submarine leaves Barrow
for the first time.

She'll never return.

Once free of shallow water,

the tugs will depart and
her reactor will take over,

silently powering the Astute
through the ocean.

Started off as a team leader
on the Astute that's just gone out.

Fantastic pride.

That's what I felt.
We want to see more of these.

And not with ten-year gaps, either.

I work on boat two. We need to make
sure we knuckle down and we can have
a day like this in years to come.

It was built slowly and carefully
by a lot of dedicated people.

It's a wonderful thing to see it go.

I was surprised, actually,
to see how fast
it was cruising along there.

It's taken 14 years
to get to this moment.

But for almost 5,000 people
in the shipyard,

tomorrow is another working day.

They'll clock on as usual
and continue building
the next Astute submarine -

one of the world's most complicated
and secretive machines.

In the next programme,

we go to Derby and meet some of the
11,000 people that build jet engines

for one of the world's most
famous companies - Rolls Royce.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk