HMS Trafalgar is a decommissioned of the Royal Navy. Unlike the rest of the Trafalgar-class boats that followed, she was not launched with a pump-jet propulsion system, but with a conventional 7-bladed propeller.[1] Trafalgar was the fifth vessel of the Royal Navy to bear the name, after the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar.
In 2012 a Royal Navy submariner was jailed for 8 years for trying "to pass secrets to the Russians that could have undermined Britain's national security"; one element of this was information on "a secret operation undertaken by HMS Trafalgar.[2] [3]
After Operation Veritas, the attack on Al-Qaeda and Taliban forces following the September 11 attacks in the United States, Trafalgar entered Plymouth Sound flying the Jolly Roger on 1 March 2002. She was welcomed back by Admiral Sir Alan West, Commander-in-Chief of the fleet and it emerged she was the first Royal Navy submarine to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles against Afghanistan.[4]
In July 1996, Trafalgar grounded near the Isle of Skye in Scotland.[5]
In November 2002, Trafalgar again ran aground close to the Isle of Skye, causing £5 million worth of damage to her hull and injuring three sailors. She was travelling 50 metres below the surface at more than 14 knots when Lieutenant-Commander Tim Green, a student in the "Perisher" course for new submarine commanders, ordered a course change that took her onto the rocks at Fladda-chuain, a small but well-charted islet. Commander Robert Fancy, responsible for navigation, and Commander Ian McGhie, an instructor, both pleaded guilty at court-martial to contributing to the accident. On 9 March 2004 the court reprimanded both for negligence. Green was not prosecuted, but received an administrative censure.[6]
In May 2008 it was reported that the crash was caused by the chart being used in the exercise being covered with tracing paper, to prevent students marking it.[7]
Trafalgar was decommissioned on 4 December 2009 at Devonport.[8]