Every figure below is adjustable. Change the assumptions and the total changes with them — that is rather the point. Defaults are the ones used in the article.
Public money is hard to feel at this scale. So here is the same total, expressed as other things the state has spent money on.
Vessel and rescue costs assume second-hand offshore support ships bought outright, not chartered. Crew costs are fully loaded — salary, employer national insurance, pension and rotation travel.
The captive insurer figure is capitalisation, which is reserved rather than spent, so it is recoverable in a way the other set-up lines are not. The letter-of-credit charge sits in the annual column because it recurs.
Training cost per recruit covers courses, instructor time, fuel and wages during the six months before a crew member is productive. Attrition of 20–30% is not modelled here and would push the annual training line up.
The £662m benchmark is the April 2026 UK–France agreement. These are estimates built from public unit costs, not quotations, and should be read as an order of magnitude rather than a tender.