HMS Prince of Wales’ departure delayed after suffering new fault

HMS Prince of Wales’ departure has been delayed once more after a “crack” was found in part of the aircraft carrier’s machinery.

The warship should have left for Scotland this morning but was postponed after a crack was found in the fuel hose which leads to one of its generators.

A Royal Navy source told The Telegraph that she is now likely to sail at 10pm tonight and stressed that the latest problem was “an unrelated defect to the shaft”.

They added: "if it wasn't for the shaft, it would just be a 12 hr delay”, admitting that “it doesn't help the messaging”.

The source cautioned of “a time constraint” and warned that if the ship does not “get out tonight otherwise there will be more delays”.

The ship broke down off the Isle of Wight in August after sailing from Portsmouth Naval Base to take part in flight trials and diplomatic visits in the US.

Inspections by divers and engineers found that the 33-ton starboard propeller - the same weight as 30 Ford Fiesta cars - had malfunctioned with a coupling holding it in place breaking.

The carrier was taken back to Portsmouth for further examination by engineers from Babcock before the decision was taken for it to travel to Rosyth, Fife, where it was built, to undergo repairs in dry dock.

Although she had been expected to sail on Monday, work was not completed in time to remove the giant propeller and the sailing was delayed until 11am on Friday.

The sailing this evening is dependent on the issue being resolved as well as high tides to enable the giant warship to leave Portsmouth Harbour.

Lord West, former first sea lord, said "overall it's clearly very unfortunate that we now have another problem again".

"When you have big bits of machinery things do go wrong. The problem with the shaft is they really don't know what's the issue and that's worrying."

HMS Prince of Wales could be absent for months

The Navy has not commented on how long the repairs at Rosyth are expected to take and how long HMS Prince of Wales will be absent from its role as Nato flagship, but it is understood it will be months rather than weeks.

Its sister ship HMS Queen Elizabeth changed its autumn plans to travel to the US to take over some of the planned engagements including hosting the Atlantic Future Forum in New York - a defence conference aimed at strengthening UK and US bonds.

Rear Admiral Steve Moorhouse, director of Force Generation, who is responsible for making sure Royal Navy ships are ready to deploy, previously explained the fault suffered by HMS Prince of Wales.

He said: "Royal Navy divers have inspected the starboard shaft of the ship and the adjacent areas and they have confirmed there is significant damage to the shaft on the propeller and some superficial damage to the rudder but no damage to the rest of the ship.

"Our initial assessment has shown that coupling that joins the final two sections of the shaft has failed.

"This is an extremely unusual fault and we continue to pursue all repair options."