Duncan, last Type 45 destroyer launches in Govan

Duncan, the last of the six Type 45 destroyers built at Govan and finished at Scotstoun on the Clyde was launched this afternoon, 11th October 2010. She is due to enter service in 2014.

As well as being the last of her class, she is the last ship to have what is called a ‘dynamic launch’. In future, ships will be built in dry docks and floated out.

This is the last time any of us will experience live that moment when a huge ship almost imperceptibly starts to move stern first, gathering speed down the slip, braked by heaps of heavy chain and parting the water as the weight of her takes the plunge.

In many ways today marked a transition between worlds in Clyde shipbuilding – between a known if precarious present and an utterly unknown future.

Will the aircraft carriers get built? And one or two? The heavy financial penalties for cancellation will not benefit the men whose jobs will go if that happens.

And after that?

We went to watch and report on the launch of the the fourth Type 45 – Dragon. We saw and felt the total community involvement in this world, from the youngest to the oldest and regardless of gender. The impact of the loss of shipbuilding in Govan would be cultural as well as economic.

HMS Daring, who, as the first, gave her name to the class;HMS Dauntless, also now in service with the Royal Navy; and Diamond had gone before Dragon. Defender followed her down the slip and Duncan completed the series today.

At the time we wondered about the consistency of the naming principle of the ships in the class. ‘Duncan’ seemed a different order of name, somehow more pedestrian – and it still does.

Now, though, we know where the name has come from and its source is far from pedestrian in any sense.

Admiral Adam Duncan was a Scot from Dundee who deployed a radical new strategy at the Battle of Camperdown on 11th October 1797. Duncan set the precedent for close quarters engagement which won this battle against the Dutch and which was used eight years later by Nelson at Trafalgar.

Basically, what Duncan did, heavily outnumbered in ships, was to sail straight into the Dutch broadside and slug it out until he won – and he night not have done. It was a very bloody battle but the strategy was unexpected.

The victory at Camperdown gave Napoleon reason to delay his planned invasion of Britain, with Nelson’s win at Trafalgar sealing that security.

The last of the Type 45s, named for Admiral Duncan, was launched today on the 213th anniversary of his victory and will be affiliated to his home city of Dundee.