THE first warship built in Portsmouth in four decades has been welcomed into the bosom of the RN family.

Falkland Islands patrol ship HMS Clyde was commissioned in the yard which built her, ten months after a spectacular nighttime naming ceremony.

Clyde was built by the VT Group in their state-of-the-art ship hall; the firm owns the patrol ship – and will continue to do so for the first years of her life, leasing her to the RN for duties in the South Atlantic.

And those duties begin shortly. Clyde departs Portsmouth for the Falklands in mid-August.

Upon arrival in the islands she will take over the duties of HMS Dumbarton Castle whose quarter-century career protecting the Falklands is in its twilight.

Clyde’s sponsor, Lesley Dunt, was among the guests of honour at the ceremony in Portsmouth Naval Base, where the Royal Marines Band provided suitable martial music and Andrea Hopper, the wife of Cdr Simon Hopper, cut the commissioning cake assisted by 22-year-old AB David Maund, the youngest sailor in the 40-strong ship’s company.

“I appreciated from day one that the first ship built in Portsmouth for years would be special,” said Cdr Hopper, “but I didn’t realise until the naming ceremony what it really meant to the people of the dockyard and businesses in Portsmouth.”

Once she departs, Clyde is unlikely to return to the city which built her as she will be on station constantly in and around the Falklands, receiving her overhauls and refits in the southern hemisphere.

Before HMS Clyde, the last ship built in Portsmouth was the Leander-class frigate HMS Andromeda, launched in 1967.