HMS Venturer, the first of the Royal Navy’s new Type 31 frigates, has taken another step forward with the installation of her foremast at Babcock’s Rosyth facility.
With the 24 metric tonne foremast now in place, weighing the same as 10 full-size Range Rovers, the profile of HMS Venturer is nearing completion, offering a visible sign of momentum as outfitting continues ahead of sea trials next year.
The successful lift and integration required close coordination between several specialist engineering and lifting teams. The foremast travelled from the Venturer Building to the dockside at Rosyth before being raised and placed on the ship.
Paul Watson, Babcock’s Arrowhead Managing Director, said: “HMS Venturer will play an important part in the Royal Navy’s defence capabilities. The foremast installation on the vessel marks another important milestone and clearly demonstrates the progress being made across the Type 31 programme.”
The Type 31 programme, also known as the Inspiration class, is central to the Royal Navy’s future surface fleet, designed to provide a versatile and affordable frigate capable of global deployments. HMS Venturer is expected to begin sea trials in 2026
The Type 31 frigate was gently lowered into the River Forth at the Port of Leith recently.
As of August 2025, three of the Royal Navy’s 13 new frigates under construction in Scotland have entered the water: HMS Venturer (Type 31), HMS Glasgow, and HMS Cardiff (both Type 26). In total, eight have reached the steel-cut stage—five Type 26 vessels (Glasgow, Cardiff, Belfast, Birmingham, Sheffield) and three Type 31 ships (Venturer, Active, Formidable).
I wonder how much new technology will influence future shipbuilding, especially naval vessels. Robotics must have a significant role going forward and allow much faster build rates. AI in combination with robotics is an inevitable marriage, but just how much can these systems really achieve? Another interesting development is being adopted by Tesla and now Ford where they hope to achieve around 40% reduction in sub-assemblies. One long-term result of using modern remote systems is the possibility of reducing ship production complexity and time to where vessels can be ordered depending on need, thus allowing for an improved amortisation of budgets. Imagine a Type 31 being built in just 12 months!
The big concern, what will all those workers replaced by ai, robots or just more effecient sub assemblies do for work?
Add in the impact on local shops and the suppliers of goods.
We are in for interesting times ahead as workers in multiple areas are all subject to attack from development. That’s in addition to the affects of cheaper labour overseas.
Im beginning to understand how the luddites felt!
The social aspects are not the MOD’s chief concern, though I’m sure their HR department would use more acceptable language. The use of super-efficient technology is as inevitable as Christmas and the potential cost/time savings on military equipment may be too tempting to ignore. Equally, our potential foe will not hesitate to use whatever means to match and even surpass our own abilities. The notion that a principal naval vessel could be ordered and in service in under two years may seem like fairyland, but new technology is rapidly changing established mindsets.
All true and valid points.
But when vast swathes of the population are living on universal basic income supplied by the state, where will the money come from to fund the ships.
When AI and Tech gets to the level of Building Warships independently we won’t need Ships – things will have moved on.
Reading about the South Korean shipyards the impression gained is that they design the blocks for factory build and to fitted out to max possible state before assembly in yard to save time in fitting out which gives them one the world’s fastest shipyard build completion times, understand Glasgow still in Scotstoun being fitted out since moved way back in Nov. ’22.
Robots are used extensively primarily in the cutting but there is limited ability to use then more as in the car industry due to very small batch sizes.
All great news, can’t be long now until she gets ready for trials.👀
Now then, about these *Full Sized Range Rovers*, They are all *full size* and all called Range Rovers, just different ranges have different dimensions. 🤦♂️
Just have to hope it is better designed and built than a Range Rover.
Used to be a loyal Land Rover customer and had plenty of reliable vehicles from them.
Now, wouldn’t touch on a barge pole.
Do you get half sized range rovers?
Isn’t that just the Evoque?
We measure weights in Range Rovers and missile targets in tennis balls, any other silly measure we should be using?
Yes. *Glaciation*, It’s a good measure for most UK Defence Projects. 💣⌛💤
It has been established over many years that the approved yardstick for weight and length are London Buses, and that for area is Football Pitches.