From tonight the Royal Navy will be making the first of what they hope will be many visits to your own home.

Making Waves, the long-awaited new Naval drama series from ITV, will be hitting the small screen, allowing the public to see a version of what goes on inside an RN frigate.

From the idea being first mooted, the project has taken five years to come to fruition.

No one can pretend that this is a normal Type 23.

“There are individual scenarios in these six episodes that one ship might encounter during her deployment, but in this series everything is crammed in,” said WO Dave Allport, who was one of the Navy’s team on hand to make sure the filming went smoothly.

“But this is a drama, not a documentary,” he added.

For Naval afficionados there will be moments to grit their teeth. Cries of “That would never happen!” will be heard in the living rooms around Plymouth, Portsmouth and the Clyde.

But look beyond that and the incredible attention to detail carried out by the film crew is phenomenal, down to computer screensavers and pictures in the background of the Commanding Officer’s cabin, played in the series by former EastEnders star Alex Ferns.

All hints of the true identity of the drama’s HMS Suffolk have been spirited away, and poor HMS Grafton which played her has been relegated to a name-check in the credits.

Series consultant Cdre Barry Leighton said: “The storylines are a mixture of what the Navy is all about – action, drama, humour and mutual respect.”

Series creator Ted Childs a former RAF man whose TV drama record includes Soldier Soldier, said: “The hi-tech world that is a warship at sea makes considerable professional and personal demands on all its crew members.

“At the same time there is much opportunity for depicting the wit, warmth and humanity which always underpins entertaining and engaging drama.

“Clearly we can’t feature all the crew on board the Suffolk, so what we have done is highlight a number of people performing a variety of functions on the ship, including obviously the captain and the second-in-command, and non-commissioned officers and ratings.”

Making Waves can be found on ITV1 on tonight at 9pm.