Remarks by Her Majesty The Queen, Sponsor of HMS Astute, at a ceremony to mark the end of the submarine’s first commission, HMNB Devonport

Each time I have met your Commanding Officers and visited the submarine, I am reminded of the exceptional servicemen and women in our Royal Navy.

Commanding Officers, the Ship’s Company, and families of HMS ASTUTE, 

18 years ago, I was enormously proud to visit Barrow-in-Furness as your newly appointed Lady Sponsor. 11 careful owners, 307 million nautical miles, and 357 harbour entries later, it is such a pleasure to bring together the entire Ship’s Company to celebrate HMS ASTUTE’s first commission. 

During the course of my role as your Lady Sponsor, I have had quite the education into the life of a submariner. With this being the UK’s first submarine to embrace the digital world, perhaps these experiences of the unknown were shared across the Ship’s Company. Indeed, her warfare trials on the Eastern Seaboard of the US were so successful, proving virtually impossible to detect, that the US Navy had to update their own exercises to match her. As for the crew, I suspect that the novelty of having one’s own bunk was enough to make her ‘first of class, and second to none’. 

It is those of you serving in her who ensure that she is much more than the steel of her pressure hull and greater than the sum of her electronic parts. Each time I have met your Commanding Officers and visited the submarine, I am reminded of the exceptional servicemen and women in our Royal Navy. Within this Ship’s Company, those extraordinary endeavours range from the innovation of one Petty Officer to code cutting edge long-range communications software, through to the resourceful solution to maintain a vacuum, in the middle of the Indian ocean, with clingfilm! I can only imagine what the unofficial toolkit in a submarine might look like. It is this inquisitive spirit and razor-sharp professionalism that has steered you all through dangerous waters and, thanks to your efforts, ensured the safety of this nation and our allies. 

There is no doubt that our Navy will miss her as she undergoes her refit for her next commission, and we may all find ourselves again at the start of another steep learning curve as software updates, novel technology, and enhanced weaponry transform the submarine you know so well. That aside, and with global tectonics shifting unpredictably, she may emerge for her second commission into an unfamiliar world – a challenge that I know will be taken on with her usual tenacity. 

What also adds immeasurable strength to the casing of HMS ASTUTE is her wider family. With limited connectivity and often going weeks without an email, many of you here today are responsible for keeping a steady hand on the helm at home and, like lighthouses, keeping an unceasing watch for their return. I am sure that there are mixed emotions for you all today; as this close family disperses and another, in several years, takes shape as she is again ready to set sail. 

And so, to mark such a momentous occasion in the life of HMS ASTUTE but also to acknowledge your hard-fought success and my immense pride as your Lady Sponsor, I will leave you with one final order of the day: Splice the Mainbrace.