Helping the Royal Navy to deploy and the Naval Base to operate despite Covid-19
2020 has been an extraordinary year for everyone but, despite the challenges Covid-19 presented, it couldn’t mean a pause in operations for the Royal Navy and BAE Systems, its support team at Portsmouth Naval Base.
It was essential to keep the dockyard open and continuously operational throughout the pandemic, so BAE Systems reacted to the crisis quickly, working closely with the Royal Navy.
Within two days of the nationwide lockdown being announced, BAE Systems employees were back working on the ships with new Covid-19 safety precautions and equipment having been put in place almost overnight.
With the health of the team paramount, the company installed hygiene stations around the base, instigated strict social distancing for its workers and provided protective equipment to those who were required to work in close quarters on board the Royal Navy’s ships.
This response to Covid19 meant major work could continue largely uninterrupted on the Royal Navy’s Portsmouth flotilla, seeing eight ships depart on key deployments around the world in the first eight weeks of the pandemic.
This also included preparing Type 45 destroyer HMS Dauntless for a complex engine upgrade and lifeextending maintenance and upgrades to Type 23 frigates HMS Lancaster and HMS Westminster.
Later in the year, engineers prepared flagship HMS Queen Elizabeth, Type 45s HMS Diamond and HMS Defender, and Type 23 HMS Kent to take part in the
Royal Navy’s largest NATO group exercise in decades, Exercise Joint Warrior, in October.
This was a tremendous effort on all accounts as it demonstrated the carrier’s capabilities to lead and command a carrier strike group ahead of its first operational deployment, scheduled for 2021.
By the time of the second lockdown, it was business as usual while adopting Covidsafe ways of working as part of the new norm.
In addition to supporting the Royal Navy’s Portsmouth flotilla, we were given a glimpse of what the future has in store as BAE Systems and the Navy X technology team revealed the Royal Navy’s first autonomous Pacific 24 sea boat.
At the Broad Oak site in Hilsea, BAE Systems secured a major contract to continue providing the Archerfish mine neutraliser for the US Navy and successfully supported trials of the world’s most advanced torpedo, Spearfish, also manufactured in Portsmouth.