I’m about to take you on an exploration of some of the finest luxury on the planet. The government spent billions on these they are going to at least be semi comfortable?

Well unfortunately the truth is they are principally weapons of war operating at extreme depths and conditions. Also because they do cost their governments billions, they try and save pennies wherever they can. This means that in a list of thousands of priorities, crew comfort is somewhere near the bottom somewhere just above making sure the tile colour is aestheticly pleasing to dolphins.

Saying that though, I think I’d probably agree. I’d prefer a submarine that works and keeps me save and works well rather than one which is comfortable. With that in mind i’ll rank the items you’ve listed from mildly uncomfortable through to hellish contraption that still gives me nightmares.

1. In at number 1 is the bed, or rack, or bunk space or pit. I didn’t find this too bad. It’s cramped, it’s either too warm or too cold but it’s yours. If you are big, particularly tall it’s a struggle and you need to sleep with your feet dangling off. Might be hard to get some scale but for me if I was lying down, I had exactly enough room to raise my elbow so that it touched the bunk above. That gave you just enough room to roll over, albeit you had to develop a technique.
2. It had a light, plug socket and fan, although had to place that just right to prevent it being the artic or a sauna. The worst bit of a bunk for me was hot bunking. I was a non ships company, non qualified officer tagging along to get some experience. I was the lowest of the low in priority. I shared a bed with someone, so pushed blankets to the bottom when you got out. I also had one of those little lockers at the bottom to fit all my personal belonging for 4 weeks.

2. There isn’t much wrong with the showers themselves. Yes they are too short, there isn’t much pressure and the temperature is a bit irratic, but the problem was being able to use them. Submarines have a limited supply of water, and a whole lot of things that water is needed for. You also have to dispose of that water, which can create noise.

Therefore limited to a submariners shower. In 10 second soak. Turn the water off. Lather up. In 10 second rinse. Water off. Lather up, rinse. Anything more than 30 seconds was classed as a “hollywood” shower. You can get perfectly clean doing that, just not that relaxing.

3. The toilet or heads

This is the best photo I could find. It’s not quite the same as the set up I’m used to, but pretty illustrative. These things gave me nightmares, still do to be honest. I think I spent more time in here than in either of the things above, trying to defeat my turd and send it to the abyss.

You have 150 blokes, on dodgy, stodge diets all trying to using 11 toilets. The toilets are trying to pump all that through a tiny pipe. I used to have to carefully plan my visit. When would I have long enough to undertake the battle. There were routine times where I would spend 2 hours trying to plunge away that mornings breakfast.

You could go and ask the engineers if it was really blocked, but no-one wants to be the guy who asks someone else to go and clear their poo, especially if they sleep 2 foot above them. It was also the focal point for so many arguments, who left an old toilet roll, who put the toilet roll on opposite down.

Who didn’t follow the right procedure flush, use, flush, extra flush to push it down the pipes. Honestly there are very few things which illicit such a feeling in me as a submarine toilet!