L-12 Ocean - Building Program
It was money that dictated the approach towards the construction of HMS Ocean. It was a notable achievement where it bucked the trend of rising costs for large warship construction. At a cost of £200 million to build and equip, the ship's cost was a little more than that of a modern frigate. This could only be achieved by VSEL's subcontracting of the construction and basic outfitting of the hull to an experienced mercantile shipbuilder, Kvaerner Govan Ltd, which used modern and efficient methods. By maximising the use of commercial off-the-shelf systems in the propulsion, marine engineering and electrical systems, it achieved considerable cost savings.
Vickers acted as the ship designer and systems integrator; the construction of the basic ship platform was subcontracted to the Kvaerner Govan shipyard in Glasgow, Scotland. The ship was launched at Govan in October, 1995, and after outfitting of the hull and machinery, she steamed to VSEL's facility at Barrow-on-Furness [in Western England] in November, 1996. Completion of the fitting out to military standards, including installation of combat systems, and communications equipment was performed at the VSEL facility, and were completed in the first quarter of 1998.
The allegation that Kvaerner Govan, the commercial shipyard with which VSEL teamed to build the ship platform, did not appreciate the requirement to apply certain naval engineering standards was refuted by the company. The Department took steps to evaluate the capability of the sub-contractors proposed by both tenderers. This was limited by the lack of information provided in the tenders. However, the National Audit Office's technical consultants agreed with the Department's conclusion that Kvaerner Govan was an efficient shipyard with a good track record of delivering complex merchant vessels. But the Department believed that VSEL would need to input specialised warship knowledge into Kvaerner Govan.
The arrangements for the Classification of the vessel [eg to Lloyds Register of Shipping Standards] were not clearly spelt out in the Department's initial contract documentation although the documentation was refined during the course of the competition. While this refinement served to reduce the downstream risks, some risk remained. More generally, if the Departmentare to continue procuring vessels which embody a mixture of commercialand military standards some consideration might be given to improving the expertise of the Department's staff in connection with commercial standards.
Nevertheless, this approach could not be readily applied in all situations because some systems had to be made more rugged to comply with stricter naval standards. In some areas, it was found that adopting commercial approaches led to more waste. For example, during the HMS Ocean's early operations, it was found that excessive water usage was a problem. This was traced to the use of commercial screw taps and shower heads. To address this issue, an additional reverse osmosis desalination plant was added to the existing four to increase the amount of potable water produced.
The considered conclusion of Ministry of Defense personnel was that the acquisition was very successful in all respects. First, the cost was extremely low for the type and quality of ship that is being delivered. [Part of the cause for the low price was that VSEL made a management decision to build the vessel at a loss to better position themselves to competitively respond to future British Navy acquisitions. Also, VSEL was able to negotiate a very competitive price from the Kvaerner Govan organization, which was reflected in the 'Best and Final' offer.] Without exception, everyone in MOD with whom I talked felt that this acquisition concept would be the general model of the future, i.e., letting the contractor perform the design, and increasing the use of commercial-type standards and equipment.
Probably the major problem that occurred in the acquisition was in the area of effectively working with the sub-contractors during their participation in the effort. The sub-contractors were in a difficult position in dealing with MOD on-site representatives because they were, in fact, working for the main contractor, VSEL.
HMS Ocean was damaged on launch and a package of repairs costing some £1.125 million was needed. The cost of these repairs was borne by MOD under its indemnity scheme. HMS Ocean was subsequently dry-docked at Portsmouth and further repairs were undertaken to her tail shaft bearings and 'A' bracket bearings. As part of her acceptance, HMS Ocean was the subject of a programme of defect rectification under an agreed procedure with the Prime Contractor. This process is common to the acceptance of all warships and the costs incurred are predominantly the responsibility of the Prime Contractor. By 1998 HMS Ocean had not required maintenance beyond planned routine work since her launch.
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