Captain tells story of Navy's submarines

The Royal Navy’s submarine service was the subject of an illustrated talk at the meeting of the Babbacombe and St. Marychurch Probus Club.
Captain Mark Cooper RN (retired) was the guest speaker.
He served as captain of the nuclear-powered submarine, HMS Torbay, from 2001 to 2004 and he recalled the occasion when the submarine was anchored in the Bay to welcome local dignitaries on board.
HMS Torbay was eventually decommissioned in 2017 after 30 years as part of the British navy’s operational fleet.
Captain Cooper said that the current strength of the Royal Navy’s submarine service consisted of a total of eight nuclear-powered vessels, plus the separate fleet of four based in Scotland, which carry nuclear weapons as part of the NATO deterrent. One of these is always at sea in an undisclosed location.
He went on to describe the interior of a modern submarine, with informative photographs and diagrams to illustrate the separation between the nuclear power equipment, the weapons, the operational areas and the crew quarters. The weaponry on board included torpedoes and guided missiles, with sonar equipment to detect vessels in a 50-mile radius.
Captain Cooper explained that the submarine is 90 metres long and is equipped for mission endurance of 90 days – a period limited by the quantity of food carried on board for the crew!
Among the many functions carried out by the submarine service and described by Captain Cooper was to carry out ‘special forces insertion’ landing operators secretly at foreign locations, as well as carrying out surveillance and tracking the movements and activities of shipping.
After his retirement from the Royal Navy, Captain Cooper served as the Harbour Master in Dartmouth for seven years. He now lives in Torquay.
The Probus Club of Babbacombe and St. Marychurch meets each Thursday morning at 10 am at the St. Matthias Church hall in Wellswood, and welcomes prospective new members as guests