THE crew of one of the UK’s ballistic submarines from HM Naval Base Clyde used their spare time to raise £2,500 for good causes.

The 140-strong crew of Royal Navy submariners from HMS Vigilant spend weeks at a time under the ocean maintaining the country’s nuclear deterrent.

But when not operating the high-tech vessel, the crew have some precious down time which they decided to use to benefit others.

Although they have a gruelling schedule of six hours on and six hours off, the crew got involved in a number of fundraising activities. They In the first of these, the sailors created homemade poppies for Remembrance Day, with all donations going to the Poppy Appeal.

The Royal Navy doesn’t usually allow the growing of beards or moustaches but some crew members got overcame this by gaining special permission from the captain to take part in Movember. Many of the ship’s company decided to grow a moustache to raise awareness and funds to help fight prostate cancer.

The submariners overcame the cramped space on board the submarine to challenge themselves with exercise. The crew squeezed equipment such as rowing machines into every available space.

POET Hudson and LS WS Lindsay raised money for Glasgow Children’s Hospital by pushing their bodies to the limit and descending the equivalent of the Mariana Trench, a total of seven miles, on the versi-climber and rowing 50 miles in one sitting.

The last fundraising event was a “1,000 number raffle”, held during the last few weeks of the patrol with all funds going to Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Lieutenant Mitchell-Heggs said: “HMS Vigilant (Port) is proud to be able to contribute in any way possible to such worthy causes, with the endeavour to help change people’s lives for the better.”

In addition to the events on board, some of the crew took part in the Navy’s annual Cutter Rose Bowl and Montague Cup rowing completions.

More than half of the ship’s company took part, some with loads of rowing experience and others with none at all but they stepped up to the challenge, rowing 1,000 metres in the shortest time possible.

Rivalries between departments added to the competitiveness of the event despite it being a team effort and completion times ranged from under three minutes to just over four. All participants were determined to give it their all and and add to the Vigilant overall time entry to the competition.

Lieutenant Commander Walker said: “I’d like to say a special thanks to the sports lottery for providing T-shirts for those taking part. It was eye-opening to see how much pain a submariner will put themselves through for a free T-shirt.”