At the naval shipyard in Cherbourg, the Perle nuclear submarine was launched, which suffered a severe fire and a bow transplant. The repair of the ship will continue at the French Navy base in Toulon.
- Today, Perle returned to the state it was in a few hours before the fire. We have repaired the damage caused to them. As soon as the boat returns to Toulon, its repairs will continue. Sea trials will take place at the end of 2020, and the submarine will return to service in 2023," NavalNews quotes the representative of the French Ministry of Defense, Herve Grandjean.
In June 2020, a severe fire occurred on board the Perle submarine, which was under repair in the Toulon dock. The high temperature changed the characteristics of the metal of the bow of the submarine and it was decided to replace it with a fragment of the same type of decommissioned submarine Saphire. Both ships were delivered to Cherbourg, where the hulls were cut from January to March 2021. In May, the nose of the Saphire was combined with the stern of the Perle. Then, a robust housing was welded, 130 electrical cables and 70 hydraulic pipelines were connected. For ease of installation, the cut locations of the two submarines did not match, which is why the updated Perle became 1.4 meters longer than the project, its displacement increased by 68 tons.
The nose transplant operation required 350 thousand working hours (100 thousand of them were occupied by classes and trainings)
Anton Valagin