The US Navy has begun to improve its current public shipyards, such as the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, shown here. (US Navy)

A new labour agreement signed on 29 April that seeks to build a rotational workforce of skilled welders could eventually serve as template for a national workforce arrangement for work on naval ships, according to Edward L Bartlett Jr, founder and CEO of Bartlett Maritime Corporation (BMC) – the company that brokered the deal.

The impetus for the rotational welders was a plan to use such a workforce to work on naval ships in Charleston, South Carolina, Bartlett told Janes in an interview on 29 April.

BMC hopes to prove out the concept through the recentlysigned labour deal and similar follow-on agreements. BMC has also proposed to construct and operate component repair facilities in northeast Ohio with an option to build a new public naval shipyard in Charleston.

The Belgian Navy's Modernised M (Karel Doorman)-class frigate BNS Louise-Marie (F 931) will join the EU's maritime security mission ‘Aspides' in the Red Sea in the coming week. (Guy Toremans)

The Belgian Navy's Modernised M (Karel Doorman)-class frigate BNS Louise-Marie (F 931) has been declared operationally ready to participate in the European Union's (EU's) maritime security missions in the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz following a period of extended preparatory training in the Mediterranean, the service has announced.

Louise-Marie was originally scheduled to transit through the Suez Canal to join the EU's ‘Aspides' mission to protect commercial shipping in the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden on 12 April. However, on 13 April the Belgian Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the deployment had been postponed ‘indefinitely' to address technical issues that had occurred during training the previous week. During the incident, one of the ship's RIM-7 M/P Sea Sparrow surface-to-air (SAM) missiles failed to launch, remaining stuck in the launch tube, and several other weapon systems also failed to shoot down the practice drone.

Virginia-class submarine New Jersey was delivered to the US Navy. (Janes/Michael Fabey)

HII's Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) unit confirmed on 25 April it had delivered Virginia-class fast-attack submarine New Jersey (SSN 796) to the US Navy (USN) in a release, noting the SSN is scheduled to be commissioned later in 2024.

The submarine delivery comes at a time when the USN shipbuilding is coming under scrutiny – with the Virginia-class programmes being one of the efforts coming under intense focus – for running far behind schedule.

Not only is the Virginia shipbuilding programme off schedule, but lawmakers are questioning the recent USN fiscal year (FY) 2025 budget request for only a single submarine, when two were expected.

However, USN officials noted they are making the best decisions possible because of workforce and supply-chain issues that continue to plague the efforts to build submarines and other naval vessels.

New Jersey is the 11th Virginia-class submarine delivered by NNS and the 23rd built as part of the teaming agreement with General Dynamics Electric Boat.