I am Spanish and I live in the city in which this has happened (Cartagena). I know some people working there and I have laughed with them about that. The thing is that this happened some time ago, nearly a month or 2 ago (Don't know why the press took that long to publish it:
http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2013/05/08/actualidad/1368033966_797022.html Spanish press, 3 weeks ago).
One big thing that you should take into account is that all the engineers working there never had assembled a submarine... because here in Cartagena all the ones who built a submarine retired some years ago. So no one had experience.
The problem was partly a piece of steel they bought that didn't fit and also was overweighed (Not really sure, the cleaners told me that), and (this is true, sure) that they put extra metal plates in the final assemble that caused more overweight. They will swap it and remove the extra plates. But that's a lot of work, as they told me.
PD: And you don't know the part when they dropped the submarine into the water and, as it was sinking, and without explanation, the submarine escaped with no one inside it.. but they didn't published it
;)... it appeared near the zone, but was a funny that the submarine escaped.