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Gimme shelter: new frigate HMS Belfast moves under cover for completion
4 July 2025
Get in, get out of the rain. I'm goin' to move on up to the waterfront…
In a careful and long-planned operation, the huge aft block of the Royal Navy’s third Type 26 frigate was moved into a new gigantic assembly hall as engineers on the Clyde press ahead with construction of the £1.3bn submarine hunter.
Almost four years to the day that His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales pressed the button to cut the first steel for HMS Belfast, a remote-controlled load lifter painstakingly inched the aft section of the ship into the Janet Harvey Hall at BAE Systems’ Govan yard.
The hall, dedicated only last month, is large enough to accommodate two Type 26s – 150m long, 8,000 tonnes apiece – being built side-by-side (currently Belfast and ship No.4, HMS Birmingham).
The facility has been erected as part of a modernisation of BAE’s shipbuilding facilities – not least shielding the construction of warships from the Glaswegian elements.
It’s at this stage of the class’ assembly that Belfast’s older sisters HMS Glasgow and HMS Cardiff were pieced together and completed outside, on the standings at Govan, fully exposed to the weather.
Belfast’s aft will be joined by – and then to – her bow in the hall in the coming weeks, after which the ship will undergo further structural and outfitting work before being floated off and moved along the Clyde to BAE Scotstoun facility for testing and trials.
Eight 26s are being ordered to replace the anti-submarine variants of the current Type 23s. Five are under construction with No.6, HMS Newcastle, due to be laid down before the end of 2025.