The Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth passes under the Forth Bridge after leaving Babcock's Rosyth Dockyard, where it has been undergoing repairs, on 22 July 2024. (Ken Jack/Getty Images)
The UK Royal Navy's (RN's) aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth has returned to Portsmouth naval base after completing defect repair work and capability upgrades at Babcock's shipyard in Rosyth, Scotland, the service has announced.
The carrier departed Rosyth on 22 July following four months of unscheduled repair work in dry dock to its shaft lines that began in March. Before sailing into Portsmouth on 30 July it completed seven days of post-repair trials to test its systems, the RN said.
Following its return to Portsmouth, Queen Elizabeth will now begin a period of work-up in preparation for resuming operations in the coming months.
Queen Elizabeth was withdrawn from its planned deployment to the North Sea for NATO's Exercise ‘Steadfast Defender' in early February 2024 after damage to a propeller shaft coupling was discovered during a last-minute precautionary pre-deployment inspection.
Subsequent investigations confirmed that the issue discovered on Queen Elizabeth was related to ‘wear and tear' of the ship's starboard propeller coupling and was not the same as that discovered on HMS Prince of Wales in 2022. In the case of Prince of Wales,the problem was related to misalignment of the carrier's port shaft that was a result of errors made during its construction.
While it was undergoing repairs, Queen Elizabeth was replaced by Prince of Wales for its planned duties.
For more information on Queen Elizabeth, please see HMS Queen Elizabeth withdrawn from NATO exercise due to propeller issue.
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