The newest addition to the Navy’s amphibious arsenal is due to be handed over to the Fleet this month.

HMS Bulwark, the second of two assault ships built to put Royal Marines and soldiers on potentially hostile shores, last month left the BAE yard at Barrow-in-Furness, where she was built, to begin her first sea trials.

The 19,000-tonne warship left her ‘birthplace’ five weeks earlier than expected – which means in turn that the RN should be handed her five weeks early, in mid-July, rather than late August.

A brief period of initial trials was interrupted by a stop-off in Birkenhead to finish off her underwater painting, before she resumed trials in the Irish Sea.

The transition to RN service for Bulwark also took a major step forward with the appointment of former Lynx pilot and HMS Westminster Commanding Officer Capt Jerry Stanford as her CO in time for the departure from Barrow.

One of the last acts before leaving the north-west was to throw the ship open to the public; 3,500 people, chiefly families of BAE employees, toured the vessel their loved ones have been toiling away on since she was laid down in early 2000.

The media also made a fuss of the assault ship’s departure – including BBC weather presenter Dianne Oxbury, who climbed aboard to broadcast her bulletin from Bulwark.

Bidding farewell to Bulwark, Murray Easton, BAE’s managing director of BAE Systems Submarines, said: “The work force can, and should, be justifiably proud of Bulwark.

“She’s the best advert for more work I can imagine. This fine ship will without doubt be one of the best ever delivered by this yard.”

A further sign of the ship’s progress was the final equipment check for Bulwark’s embarked RM unit, 4 Assault Squadron, which culminated in the six-week Exercise Green Tulip 04, set to end on July 15.

The Royal Marines accompanied a convoy of veterans across to Normandy and participated in events off Arromanches before heading up the Channel to Vlissingen to join in events commemorating the Walcheren landings 60 years ago this autumn – a particularly poignant operation in the corps’ history.

On returning from Green Tulip, 4ASRM is due to embark in Bulwark, which in turn is earmarked to be handed over officially to the RN in her new home of Devonport, on July 23.

Bulwark – like her sister Albion upholding the tradition of the post-war commando carriers of the same name – is the last new vessel in the Fleet’s inventory until the arrival of the first of the Type 45 destroyers, HMS Daring, in about three years’ time.

She is due to be ready for front-line duties in 2005.