Submarine

The first of a new six part series for Carlton/Meridian, "Submarine" follows a year in the life of HMS Superb as she comes out of a three and a half year £200 million re-fit and back into active service. The Submarine Service has always attracted a special type of sailor. Dismissed even by the Admiralty in 1902 as "underhand, unfair and damned un-English". Without a doubt it takes a particular type of person to be a submariner and a particular type of person to be a submariners wife. Away from home for months at a time and with no way of keeping in touch with home it's a way of life that most of us would find untenable.

HMS Superb is about to go back to sea for the first time for three and a half years and the final frantic preparations are made. It's a time of mixed emotions, there's great excitement that at last she's about to sail, but also sadness that the last goodbyes have been said at home and loved ones face the long separation.

Off the coast of Western Scotland HMS Superb begins her first dive. Even for the most experienced submariners this is a tense time. After three and a half years in dry-dock now is the time when the crew find out if Superb can "run silent, run deep".

The Sea-Riders have joined the crew of HMS Superb for five days of intensive training that will test man and machine to their limit. The crew will have to fight fires, hydraulic bursts, electrical failures and nuclear contamination and all happening deep beneath the ocean.

Trouble on the family front for the crew of HMS Superb, the Captain's father has died and the crew must do what their first deep dive without him. The Coxswain's wife has been mugged and he has to return home to Gosport. The crew are on their way to Holland for a well deserved run ashore while back in Plymouth three of the submariners wives get together for mutual support.

The final programme in the series and the Sea-Riders are back on board for OP-EX, a virtual reality war in which Superb is the hunter and the hunted. This is the final hurdle the boat and her crew will face in their long assessment. It's a pass or fail situation and tension is running high. And as dolphins play off the bow of Superb in the warm waters of the Med, the Captain has a hard decision to make, it's time for him to move on.