Glasgow's Govan shipyard powers full steam ahead

It has been synonymous with shipbuilding for more than 150 years.

On the banks of the Clyde in Glasgow, the yard at Govan rings with the bashing of metal and the sparks of welders.

Today it has 3,500 workers busy turning out three Type 26 warships, but over the last couple of decades the site’s future has been uncertain.

Future: A blueprint of the new Type 26 frigate. Three of the warships are currently being built at the Govan shipyard in Glasgow

Future: A blueprint of the new Type 26 frigate. Three of the warships are currently being built at the Govan shipyard in Glasgow

Now, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Liz Truss becoming Prime Minister – pledging an increase in defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP – has changed the outlook for defence contractors.

BAE Systems, Govan’s owner, is recruiting nearly 1,200 more workers across its UK shipbuilding division, 400 of them at Govan.

The yard stands on the cusp of more than a decade’s worth of orders as ministers prepare to sign off on a deal for five more Type 26 class vessels.

At the same time, ways of working dating back to the 1950s are being dragged into the 2050s with an investment of more than £100million in a vast ship-building hall that will, for the first time, allow two enormous vessels to be built alongside each other.

On a sunny day when the Mail visited Govan recently, a towering mass of scaffolding and sheets loomed over the yard’s hard-standing, while in the background the Clyde shimmered.

Behind the facade was HMS Glasgow, the ship that will be the first in a line of eight submarine-hunting Type 26 frigates to be built for the Royal Navy.

Two more – HMS Cardiff and HMS Belfast – are being assembled in the giant warehouses that face out onto the yard. 

BAE, Britain’s biggest defence contractor, began work on the ships in 2017. Overall, 4,000 workers are involved in the Type 26 programme across the UK.

HMS Cardiff is still in two parts and under cover, its steel structure being readied for the next stage when it is taken outside and welded together.

HMS Glasgow sits by the water where it is in the last few months of preparation before it is ready to float.

Above it rises a Dalek-like mast structure – a piece of fibreglass made in Norway.

Part of the work left to do is in the wiring – 470 miles of it, enough to stretch between Glasgow and Portsmouth.

A vast space in the middle of the ship, the mission bay, is one of the Type 26’s key innovations.

It can be used to turn the submarine-hunting ship to various uses, with enough space to hold dozens of special forces soldiers, amphibious landing craft or even a Merlin helicopter.

In humanitarian crises, it could house facilities to produce clean water for a population of 40,000.

History: The WWII Aircraft Carrier HMS Indefatigable is launched from Govan in December 1942

History: The WWII Aircraft Carrier HMS Indefatigable is launched from Govan in December 1942 

Key to the ship’s core task of submarine-hunting is its quietness. Sir Simon Lister, BAE’s managing director of naval ships, says: ‘The trick is to make both the equipment you have in the ship quieter in the first place and then to prevent what noise remains reaching the water.’

Helping designers to guide the work is a state-of-the-art computer system using millions of data points, updated daily.

That allows them to roam around a virtual model of the ship at each stage of its creation on a screen illustrated in garish colours in a room adjacent to the yard.

In contrast to the increasingly hi-tech process is the scene on the hard-standing in front of the ship, where construction equipment and pallets lie spread out like a monumental Ikea set in the open air.

That way of working will come to an end when Govan’s new shipbuilding hall is ready.

‘Frankly, we need to stop building outside – and using construction techniques that may well have served past decades,’ says Nadia Savage, the Type 26 programme director.

‘Investing in that, we will improve safety, improve health, and be able to deliver that much more attractive workplace.’

If all goes to plan, HMS Cardiff will be the last ship to be completed outside at Govan.

HMS Glasgow is expected to enter service in the mid-2020s. Things were very different when BAE rescued Govan in 1999 after Anglo-Norwegian group Kvaerner pulled out.

Modern skills: A worker cuts metal sheeting for the Type 26 warship HMS Glasgow which is currently under construction at Govan

Modern skills: A worker cuts metal sheeting for the Type 26 warship HMS Glasgow which is currently under construction at Govan

At the time of the sale, however, the site employed a core staff of just 800.

‘In the past, it’s no secret that shipbuilding, like many other industries, has gone through quite cyclical boom and quite a long period of lull – I won’t say bust because we’re all still here building ships in the UK,’ said Savage.

‘But certainly it’s not been an easy journey through the last couple of decades.

‘That has had an impact on skills not just in shipbuilding but across manufacturing generally.’

A big boost came in 2013 when a review by the company and the Ministry of Defence concluded that Glasgow would be the best location to build Type 26 ships.

That was at the expense of Portsmouth – where shipbuilding came to an end – but allowed the tradition on the Clyde to continue.

The region has produced thousands of naval, merchant and passenger ships since the 18th century and the yard in Govan, then known as Fairfields, was founded in 1864.

BAE’s investment at the site could mean more ships are built not just for the Royal Navy, but for customers abroad too.

Savage said it could mean ‘export programmes potentially delivered from the Clyde not just exporting design expertise but exporting vessels again’.

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source: dailymail.co.uk