Taking on the big guns in bid to build frigate
A little known Dorset-based German-owned shipbuilder is chasing a lucrative prize
Deep in Hardy Country in a landlocked village featured in Tess of the D’Urbervilles is one of the stranger homes for a Royal Navy production line. In a new facility outside Winfrith Newburgh in Dorset, four miles inland from the English Channel, five Sea Class workboats out of thirty-eight ordered by the navy are under construction.
The vessels can be fitted for various jobs, from military personnel transport to minesweeping to submarine hunting, and are the sort of 11m to 18m boats that can be housed within the new giant Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.
They are being assembled by Atlas Elektronik UK, a company that last year delivered a serious breakthrough in the 350-year history of the Royal Navy: its first autonomous vessel, a minehunter