Navy yet to find woman to join gruelling nuclear submarine commander training program
THE Navy has yet to find a woman to join its gruelling submarine commander training programme.
The course is known as The Perisher and is said to be one of the most rigorous and challenging in the world.
But despite a ban on females serving on subs being lifted in 2011, not a single woman has been enrolled on the course.
A total of 1,201 men have passed the course since it began in 1917, the Ministry of Defence says.
But it admits that it has yet to find a single female to take the five-month course, let alone to get through it.
There are about 200 women in the Royal Navy with just a handful serving on submarines, which carry the UK’s nuclear deterrent.
The commander course has a high failure rate with officers not given a second chance at rejoining the programme.
Much of The Perisher takes place in classrooms and simulators ashore.
Trainees must learn how to deal with any situation they could face.
But they are rigorously monitored and, if they are not good enough, they do not proceed to the sea phase.
In that final part, trainees take turns commanding a nuclear submarine.