At sea north of Scotland on a Royal Navy warship. Storm coming in and ships closer too it start taking structural damage, including an aircraft carrier.

Being on a smaller frigate and with the DERA scientists onboard doing trials, our captain decided rather than turn and run, we would head directly into the storm.

At about 11pm, it became apparent we were getting battered, we rolled so hard we should have broached, but somehow stayed up right. Lost a few of the rib's overboard.

As we tried to turn around, water got into air vents and created a fire in the switchboard, which then immediately became a total electrical failure. So, pitch black, no power, no comm's on a warship in sea's that were higher than our bridge.

I was on the bridge, and seeing the Captain call Emergency stations for real, whilst looking at walls of water above the bridge windows, I neatly crapped myself.

One person lost a hand of fingers when a hatch broke free as he was climbing up. A wren broke her wrist being flung across a mess deck and one chap nearly died when some wooden shoring came loose in the passage way and landed on his collar bone.

No helicopter could be called out to evac because it was too rough for it to be anywhere near us.

We got power back after an hour, but by this point the rudders were fucked, the port prop shaft was buckled, power was very limited, and the waves chasing us were hitting so regularly the entire ship was vibrating.

When you see a 20 year 3 badge leading hand shaking uncontrollably in the mess square, you know there are problems.

Luckily the storm cleared in the morning and a tug came out to drag our sorry ass back alongside.