HMS Victorious (S29): The Boat That Completed Britain's Hundredth Deterrent Patrol

Barrow-Built

HMS Victorious was built by Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering at Barrow-in-Furness, launched in September 1993 and commissioned in January 1995, the second of the Royal Navy's four Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines, equipped with sixteen missile tubes capable of carrying Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, each able to carry up to twelve warheads.

An Early Grounding

In November 2000, while on the surface, Victorious grounded on Skelmorlie Bank in the upper Firth of Clyde, an early embarrassment for a submarine still relatively new to service, though not one that prevented her from going on to a long and significant operational career.

A Reactor Upgrade and a Milestone Patrol

During a major refit, Victorious received a Core H reactor, extending her operational life without the need for refuelling, and returned to sea trials in 2008 before resuming patrols in 2009.

In 2013, she achieved a notably significant milestone, completing the United Kingdom's hundredth continuous deterrent patrol by a Vanguard-class submarine, a marker of the quiet, unbroken vigilance that has underpinned Britain's nuclear deterrent since the class first went to sea.

A Recent Scare

In 2022, an electrical module fire aboard Victorious forced her to surface in the North Atlantic while en route to exercises in the United States, requiring a return to Faslane rather than continuing the planned deployment, a reminder that even the most routine-seeming patrols can turn serious in an instant.