US contractor to help Spain slim down overweight submarine that officials fear can’t surface

Washington Post ^ | June 5 | Ap

[Pan_Yan]

HARTFORD, Conn. — A new, Spanish-designed submarine has a weighty problem: The vessel is more than 70 tons too heavy, and officials fear if it goes out to sea, it will not be able to surface.

And a former Spanish official says the problem can be traced to a miscalculation — someone apparently put a decimal point in the wrong place.

“It was a fatal mistake,” said Rafael Bardaji, who until recently was director of the Office of Strategic Assessment at Spain’s Defense Ministry.

The Isaac Peral, the first in a new class of diesel-electric submarines, was nearly completed when engineers discovered the problem. A U.S. Navy contractor in Connecticut, Electric Boat, has signed a deal to help the Spanish Defense Ministry find ways to slim down the 2,200-ton submarine.

[Resolute Conservative]

The same thing happened in Office Space!

[George from New England]

So an error even bigger than the space industries metric to English conversion error of ten years ago !!

Didn’t they land on Jupiter instead of Mars from the oversight!

[Deek]

I once worked for a Spanish Technology Company. There is a reason that the Spanish hire the Germans to build infrastructure like airports.

[knittnmom]

So... I’m not overweight, my doctor’s office put the decimal in the wrong place? ;-)

[EEGator]

Luckily Milton burned the place down due to having his stapler taken away by Lumburg.

[Nervous Tick]

>> officials fear if it goes out to sea, it will not be able to surface

Hey, it *is* a *sub*marine... that’s “subo-marino” in Spanish. Means “underwater”. Duh. Those Spaniards can be such *demanding* prima donnas!

[PilotDave]

Heck, they probably installed screen doors...

[Timber Rattler]

Bardaji said the problem was discovered in the second half of last year, and Navantia told defense officials that somebody had apparently put a decimal point in the wrong place.

Oops!

[EternalVigilance]

How do you say “whoops” in Spanish?

[17th Miss Regt]

Measure twice, cut once!

[Slump Tester]

Poor headline. Increasing the surface area would add buoyancy, "slimming it down" would decrease the surface area and the buoyancy.

Just sayin...

[BlueStateRightist]

I think Chris Christie might have the same problem. Is there a work-around for him?

[andyk]

Building software projects worth only a few scores of thousands of dollars results in a repeatable process with multiple environments and QA, but not with a multi-billion dollar sub program.

[Vinnie]

How do you say “whoops” in Spanish?

!Caramba ! (I think)

[Obadiah]

I’d say they should remove the snorkle system. That should help.

[Carl Vehse]

It's happened before with NASA, as told in a 1999 post, "'SI Oops' - A short 3-act play."

[CaptainAmiigaf]

All ships SINK until the point they have displaced a weight of water equal to their own weight. And the term used is actually DISPLACEMENT.
TO lighten this sub by making it 70 tons lighter, may greatly reduce its effectiveness. It could be simpler, and quite a bit less costly to INCREASE the size of the hull so its displacement floated the sub at a “normal” waterline. Filling the tanks causes submergence, and pumping tanks lightens the boat and it surfaces. Just thinking.

[edcoil]

Take out the engines, not like the Spanish even need a submarine - turn it into an off the coast hotel that sits on the ocean floor - people can snorkel out to it and use the escape hatch for access.

[kingu]

Quick solution: Sell them to North Korea.