A PEMBROKE Dock firm of marine engineers is celebrating after the first steel was cut for HMS Cardiff, the second ship in the Royal Navy’s next generation of Type 26 anti-submarine frigates, on Wednesday, August 14.

The 80 employees of Mainstay Marine Solutions in Pembroke Dock cheered as the first steel was cut on Wales’ warship by Defence Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan at a ceremony at BAE Systems’ shipyard in Govan on the River Clyde.

Mainstay initially won an order to fabricate three 15-metre high communications masts for the new frigates.

Such was the precision and quality of Mainstay’s naval architects, design engineers, fabricators and fitters, the firm soon won a second Type 26 order, to fit out the masts ready to be placed directly on the ships, and then a third – to carry out repair work on the comms mast of the Royal Navy’s Type 45 air defence destroyers too.

“Our work for STS Defence to supply the Royal Navy has quickly grown to around 15 per cent of our £6m turnover,” said Stewart Graves, managing director, Mainstay Marine Solutions. “It is a tremendous boost to the skills of our workforce here in Pembroke Dock, which was, of course, itself a naval dockyard a couple of hundred years ago.

“Our business has been traditionally designing, building, maintaining and repairing steel and aluminium boats up to about 45m in length.

“More recently we have secured significant contracts from the renewable energy sector building wave, tidal and potentially floating wind devices. So, it is really exciting for us to be contributing to the UK’s next generation of frigates and to think that our masts will help HMS Cardiff keep in contact with her HQ wherever she is in the world!”