A SPECIAL coin and a seven-year-old boy put Rosyth workers on an even keel as construction began officially on five new warships for the Royal Navy.

Josh Duffy, whose mum works for Babcock, played a key role as the dockyard marked the occasion with a traditional ceremony on Tuesday in the new £60 million shipbuilding hall.

He won a competition to design a specially-commissioned coin that has been laid under the keel of the HMS Venturer – when the ship has been completed it will be presented to the captain and crew.

The £1.25 billion contract should see all five Type 31 frigates delivered by the end of 2028 and enter service with the Royal Navy by the end of 2030.

The first of the ships is expected in the water next year.

Sean Donaldson, Babcock's managing director at Rosyth, said: “The keel-laying ceremony for the future HMS Venturer was a great occasion as we joined with our customers and colleagues to mark this milestone.

"It’s my privilege to work with this talented team each day and to witness their drive, determination and relentless pursuit of quality.

“A big well done to our competition winner Josh, who designed the coin that we had minted for the keel-laying ceremony and to our apprentices, Ian Stevenson and Naimh Charleston, for a flawless job laying down the coin.”

The shipbuilding hall, the Venturer Building, forms part of a £60m investment programme at Rosyth and allows for two ships to be assembled, side by side, at the same time.

After cutting the first steel on the programme in September and announcing 500 new jobs to work on the contract in December, the traditional keel-laying event and start of the build is another step forward.

Guests from the Royal Navy, Ministry of Defence and other partners attended.

Dan Bishop, ships acquisition director at Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S), said: “This is a great example of successful delivery through co-operative working.

"The Royal Navy and DE&S worked in unison to set the Type 31 requirement and have successfully championed a new competitive procurement process – the first major warship procurement in a generation to meet this challenge.

"We’re really proud to work alongside Babcock to deliver this capability for the Royal Navy.

“Today marks a significant milestone in the programme for the Royal Navy, defence and shipbuilding in Scotland and it’s great to see the first of the British military’s new Type 31 warships keel being laid at Babcock’s Rosyth Dockyard."

The event comes just over a month since Babcock secured its second export contract for its Arrowhead 140 frigate (the export variant of the Type 31).

The company will be the platform design provider and technology partner for Poland’s Miecznik – Swordfish – new frigate programme.

Babcock secured a design licence agreement previously with PT PAL Indonesia (Persero) to enable PAL to build two Arrowhead 140 frigates in Indonesia for the Indonesian Navy.