This morning, the first of the Type 31 frigates to be built for the Royal Navy emerged from the Venturer building at Babcock’s shipyard in Rosyth.
This represents another sign of progress in the RN’s recapitalisation of its frigate force, following the formal naming ceremony of HMS Glasgow held last week. First steel for Venturer was cut in September 2021 and the keel was laid in April 2022. The structurally complete vessel was rolled onto the hard standing and later in the day onto the barge that will lower into the water. The Malin Augustea semi-submersible barge CD01 arrived in Rosyth in September for this purpose after being used to launch HMS Cardiff on the Clyde and is aligned with the quay ready to receive the ship.
The barge will lower the ship slowly into the water before she is transported the short distance across the basin for fitting out in number 3 dry dock where masts, weapons and sensors will be added. Babcock say they expect to hand the ship over to the RN in about a year.
Venturer has already been fitted out internally to a fairly advanced stage, for reasons of efficiency, the roll out was delayed to allow more internal work to be done under cover than originally planned. Babcock will partner with Thales UK on the integration work, which will now begin in earnest as the ship is equipped with sensors and weaponry. Combat system integration has already been de-risked as far as possible using an ashore test facility.
When first announced in 2015, the first Type 31 was supposed to be in service by 2023 – an overly ambitious target that few believed in at the time. With COVID impacting every industrial enterprise and inevitable slippage in the tight schedule, this target was subsequently revised in 2020 to be the first ship in the water in 2023, and fully in service by 2027. The programme is now approximately 15 months behind schedule, but there may be opportunities to make up time and get HMS Venturer into service by 2027-28. Babcock says it is still expecting to get all 5 ships in service by 2030, indicating confidence in the ability to deliver the subsequent vessels much faster. Work on ship 3 will will begin in hall within 24 hours of HMS Venturer’s roll-out.
The Type 31 was originally supposed to be built to an extremely taut budget of £250M per ship (not including Government Furnished Equipment, which includes some of the weapons and sensors). The Type 31 was an attempt to break the cycle of ever-increasing cost and delay in procurement, as well as create a credible UK warship design for export. Despite the ‘move to the right’ and cost rises, these objectives are being met to some extent. From a standing start, Babcock always had a major challenge on their hands but made significant investments and achieved considerable progress. The original perception that Type 31 was just a ‘glorified OPV’ has dissipated amongst informed observers, and the wisdom of building a large adaptable platform has been vindicated.
The pandemic and subsequent spikes in inflation have meant that Babcock has lost around £90M on the Type 31 programme, even after a contract modification agreed with the MoD. Some of this is being clawed back with export orders, and there are real prospects of additional derivatives to be built in the UK and overseas. Chief Executive of Babcock Marine, Sir Nick Hine, said he has told his exports team to aim for “31 by 31”, ie building on the 10 already secured (5 for RN, 2 for Indonesia and 3 for Poland) to have 31 Type 31/Arrowhead 140 derivatives built or on order worldwide by 2031.
The MoD has awarded Babcock a £65 million five-ship contract to deliver the Capability Insertion Period (CIP) for the Type 31 frigates. This covers equipment to be fitted, over and above what was specified in the original fixed-price contract and will eventually see the ships equipped with Mk 41 VLS.
Latest News
Comments
- Brilliant news, good to see more progress on her. Does anyone know when her contractors sea trials period might be?
- Bullishly, Babcock have said in six to nine months, with handover in about a year. I’d treat these timescales with a pinch of salt. It’s still the first complex ship Babcock have build from scratch and their estimates are not coming from a place of deep experience.
- Thank you for the help Jon, it will be good to see the day she finally does sail. Hopefully all goes to plan but as you say, she is the first complex ship Babcock have built so some teething issues should be expected. Hopefully they aren’t major ones..
- Carillion was audited ( badly) by KPMG not PWC ‘ according to the Financial Reporting Council (FRC). The FRC found KPMG’s audit work to be “seriously deficient” and lacking “adequate professional scepticism” in the years leading up to Carillion’s demise. The liquidators of Carillion also sued KPMG for £1.3 billion, claiming they missed red flags during the audits. KPMG has settled the lawsuit, but the amount of the settlement is not publicly disclosed. ‘
Posts
