Thirty-Four Ship-Years Alongside: The Fleet Britain Cannot Send to Sea

By Mark Allatt, UK Defence First

Executive summary

Ten Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary hulls have between them spent more than 12,600 days in port - about thirty-four ship-years - on an open-source tally published on 30 September. HMS Daring accounts for 3,408 of those days. Three Astute-class submarines account for another 4,000, one of them cannibalised for spares. The sole solid-stores ship, a tanker and a landing ship make up the rest. UK Defence First’s judgement is that this is not a maintenance dip. It is what happens when docks, spares and people are not funded, and when no one is accountable for a boat that has not sailed in four years. A navy alongside on day one cannot screen a carrier, put Tomahawk tubes to sea or guard the cables it is supposed to protect. Fuelling HMS Daring after nine years in port is not a recovery. Availability must be published, stores robbery stopped as routine practice, and the dry docks discussed since 2021 ordered - or the next tally will look like this one.

On 30 September an open-source tally listed ten Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary hulls and the days each had spent in port. HMS Ambush, 1,521. HMS Artful, 1,248. HMS Audacious, 1,278. HMS Daring, 3,408. HMS Defender, 1,172. HMS Diamond, 816. HMS Kent, 882. RFA Fort Victoria, 720. RFA Tiderace, 834. RFA Cardigan Bay, 721. Added together that is more than 12,600 days - about thirty-four ship-years - tied up on a list that does not even include every boat and auxiliary known to be alongside. The question under the figures was the right one. Is this a failure to invest in maintenance, or an inability to do anything efficiently anymore? UK Defence First’s answer is that it is both, and that the fleet is now paying for both at once.

These are not official Ministry of Defence readiness figures. The department does not publish them. They are the kind of count that dock watchers and photographers can make because the ships do not move. That is the point. A destroyer that has not left the wall since April 2017 can be timed to the day. So can an attack submarine that last sailed in August 2022.

What the days mean

HMS Daring’s 3,408 days are nine years and four months. This week she took fuel for the first time in years, and shakedown is talked of around the turn of the year. Fuelling is progress. It is not availability. Defender, at 1,172 days, and Diamond, at 816, are the next two air-defence destroyers in deep refit. Those three names alone have been alongside for a combined 5,396 days. Duncan has just entered the same programme. On a good day the Navy can point to Dauntless and to Dragon on deployment. On most days half the area-air-defence force is in a dockyard. An escort fleet already down to eleven frigates and destroyers on paper cannot afford that arithmetic.

The attack submarines are worse, because there is no second flotilla to cover them. Ambush at 1,521 days, Audacious at 1,278 and Artful at 1,248 are four years, three and a half years and three and a half years alongside. Ambush has been partially stripped of parts to keep her sisters running - a front-line nuclear boat used as a donor, with open speculation that she may never sail again. Artful has not been to sea since around May 2023. Audacious waited the best part of two years for a dry dock at Devonport. HMS Astute, not on this particular list, has been in her first mid-life revalidation since June 2025. HMS Anson, the only boat to have done real work this year, has been back in Devonport since late May. For long stretches of 2026 no operational Royal Navy attack submarine was known to be at sea. In 2025 the in-service Astutestogether managed only around 300 days at sea.

HMS Kent’s 882 days show the same disease in the frigate force. The remaining Type 23s are being run on while Type 26 and Type 31 arrive late, and each refit takes longer because the ships are tired and the docks are few. When a ship cannot sail for want of a pump or a sonar board, the default has become stores robbery: strip the part from a hull already alongside. The National Audit Office warned years ago that cannibalisation on the Astutes was running at a rate no fleet can sustain. The 1,521 days on Ambush are what that warning looks like when it is ignored.

The auxiliaries that make the fleet work

A warship that cannot be stored and fuelled at sea is a warship with a short tether. RFA Fort Victoria, the sole solid-stores ship, is on 720 days in port and has not conducted a replenishment at sea since the carrier group came home in December 2021. She was towed to Birkenhead in August for a refit that may not finish until late 2027. The stated purpose is to rebuild solid-stores skills before the new support ships arrive. The first of those, RFA Resurgent, is not due until 2031. A skill that has lapsed for five years is being revived on a thirty-year-old hull so that a replacement still five years away has someone who remembers the job.

RFA Tiderace, at 834 days, is a Tide-class tanker regenerating after a lay-up caused by lack of sailors. RFA Cardigan Bay, at 721 days, is one of the two remaining Bay-class landing ships. The Wave-class tankers have been sold. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary deliberately shrank the number of ships it could crew in order to stop a personnel spiral. That was an honest admission. It was also a capability cut. Three auxiliaries and more than 2,200 days alongside mean the Navy cannot assume it can replenish a task group, or land a force, when it next needs to.

Failure to invest, and failure to finish

The replies under the tally named the causes plainly. Docks have not been funded. In-year cuts have fallen on fuel and parts. The people pipeline in the pinch-point trades has failed. Lack of sea time then makes each of those worse. Extra submarine dry-dock capacity was first discussed in 2021. An order is still outstanding. Audacious waiting the best part of two years for a dock is not a mystery. It is a choice not to build the dock.

Inefficiency sits on top of that under-investment. Daring’s propulsion fix was identified years ago and has still not returned the ship to sea. Fort Victoria’s lay-up became a debate about whether she would ever sail, then a tow, then a refit measured in more years. No one is accountable for a boat that has been alongside for 1,521 days. The second-order effect is the one that matters in a crisis. A navy alongside on day one cannot disperse, cannot screen a carrier, cannot put Tomahawk tubes to sea and cannot guard the cables it is supposed to protect. Thirty-four ship-years in port is not a maintenance dip. It is a fleet that would start a war already late.

What should be done

UK Defence First has argued that Britain must be able to act alone, supply its own forces and spend a minimum of 5 per cent of national income on defence and security. None of that is delivered by counting hulls that cannot leave harbour.

Fund the docks, and order the submarine dry-dock capacity discussed since 2021. Buy the spares, and make stores robbery an exception with a funded path back to sea for the donor hull, not the routine way out of a defect. Put people on the same priority as steel: RFA officers, submarine marine engineers and dockyard nuclear trades are the constraint, and pay, housing and sea time are cheaper than another decade of idle ships. Publish availability. A destroyer on 3,408 days should not be counted in the escort force until she has finished shakedown. An attack submarine on 1,521 days should not be briefed as a boat in service.

Daring’s fuelling is worth marking. It does not restore the flotilla, it does not put an Astute to sea, and it does not replace five years without a solid-stores ship. Until docks, spares and people are funded ahead of the next announcement, the next tally will look like this one: ten hulls, twelve thousand days, and a Navy that cannot leave port.