Babcock has started construction of the first of five Royal Navy Type 31 frigates, HMS Venturer, at its Rosyth facility.
After cutting the first steel on the programme in September, the traditional keel laying event formally recognised the start of the build, including placing a specially commissioned coin under the keel. On completion of the ship, the coin will be presented to the captain and crew.
The ceremony was held in the new build hall, the Venturer Building, which forms part of a £60m investment programme, on top of an additional £100m over the last 10 years.
The fully hall will house two frigates for parallel assembly and should also support increased productivity gains through improved access to the platforms and digital connectivity.
The Type 31 programme is part of the shipbuilding pipeline set out in theUK Government's National Shipbuilding Strategy that was refreshed last month.
The event comes just over a month since Babcock secured its second export contract for its Arrowhead 140 frigate - the export variant of the UK Type 31 platform - with the company announced as the platform design provider and technology partner for Poland’s MIECZNIK new frigate programme.
Babcock had previously secured a design licence agreement with PT PAL Indonesia (Persero) to build two Arrowhead 140 frigates in Indonesia with design modifications for the Indonesian Navy.
Sean Donaldson, Babcock's managing director at Rosyth, said: “The keel laying ceremony for the future HMS Venturer was a great occasion as we joined with our customer and colleagues to mark this milestone.
“A big well done to our competition winner Josh Duffy (7), who designed the coin that we had minted for the keel laying ceremony and whose mum works for Babcock at Rosyth and to our apprentices Ian Stevenson and Naimh Charleston for a flawless job laying down the coin.”
At the end of last year, Babcock announced plans to recruit 500 workers for the construction of its Type 31 frigates, including welders, fabricators and mechanical and electrical fitters, as well as production support operatives.
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