HMS Cardiff, the second of eight Type 26 City Class frigates being constructed by BAE Systems for the Royal Navy has left the shipyard at Govan and will be lowered into the water in the next few days.
A team of engineers carefully transferred the ship, from the shipyard slipway onto a barge, initiating the float-off procedure. The frigate is being towed downriver to deep water at the newly refurbished ammunition jetty at Glen Mallan. Once there, the barge will gradually submerge, allowing the frigate to float. Following this process, HMS Cardiff will be towed back up to BAE Systems’ Scotstoun shipyard to be fitted out.



First of class, HMS Glasgow successfully underwent this process in November 2022 and recently was moved from the fitting out dry dock at Scotstoun to the test and commissioning dock to make way for her sister ship. It is believed HMS Cardiff is in a slightly more advanced state of completion than HMS Glasgow when she was floated off.

The float-off process is a modern, efficient, and lower-risk, if rather less dramatic method of launching a ship compared to the traditional dynamic launches where ships slide directly into the water from a slipway. The OPVs built at Govan were put into the water using this method.
Among the other three Type 26 frigates currently under construction, HMS Belfast and HMS Birmingham are being assembled at Govan.

Main Image: Iain Masterson
No doubt there are plenty of challenges with money and capacity, but T26 & T31 really need to built ‘at pace’ considering how clapped out the T23’s are.
Probably doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone but the MoD that Northumberland is in a terrible material state and Sutherland has been in LIFEX for a very long time so must have been riddled with issues too.
Great to see tangible progress on the T26 programme. Will be interesting to see how the build/fit-out time is reduced with each ship.
“It is believed HMS Cardiff is in a slightly more advanced state of completion than HMS Glasgow when she was floated off”
I’d love to see some evidence to back that up. Anecdotally, she’s actually got less outfitting than Glasgow……
“The float-off process is a modern, efficient, and lower-risk, if rather less dramatic method of launching a ship compared to the traditional dynamic launches”
Don’t confuse “modern” with “lack of alternatives in the constrained yards on the Clyde “. I’ll grant you that it has some potential efficiencies in that you don’t have to account for berth declivity when conducting your datum marking and alignment checks etc, but then again, you’re also hiring a barge for several days, tugs for a lot longer than a dynamic launch etc. Lower risk is also arguable – you’ve actually got several serials involved in the whole procedure, from transfer onto the barge, alignment, welding of sea-fastenings, a (comically long) transit, followed by a slow docking down where you’re dependent on the ballasting system of the barge, plus time spent removing sea fastenings. Probably 2-3 days of exposure to various risks, as opposed to a few hours with a traditional launch.
N-a-b
There is a very easy solution to the perceived challange of “lack of alternatives in the constrained yards on the Clyde “..
reagrds Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
A traditional launch that can quickly result in smacking into the side of the river like one of the bay class did, I hardly see a barge having any risks like that.
The new frigates really are very impressive ships. Cue the broken record, but it really wouldn’t take a massive increase in funding to flesh out the RN’s escort force to something closer to the numbers that are actually needed. I keep holding out hope that maybe there will be a T31 Batch II (5 more of this somewhat less expensive design).
No definite ASW weapons except Sting Rays on a Merlin helicopter or two.