British taxpayers were left with a bill of over £3.4m following the collision off Gibraltar last year between a Royal Navy submarine and a merchant ship. HMS Ambush, one of Britain’s new Astute-class nuclear-powered submarines, sustained damage to its conning tower during a glancing collision with a chemical tanker while submerged in international waters 3.3 nautical miles off Gibraltar.
In the next few days, the second of the Royal Navy’s Astute Class attack submarine, “HMS Ambush” will leave the BAE Systems shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, where she was built, and sail to Her Majesty's Naval Base Clyde in Scotland.