Most of us on this site were used to sailing out on British built ships with the occasional trip on a European built vessel. As ships become cheaper to build in Japan then ship owners switched their building projects to that country. When Korea achieved the technical know how in steel production and ship building they started to dominate the production and repair of ships. The same is now happening in China all those countries industries were done with government subsidies. I might be naive but I would like to see a resurrection of shipbuilding in this country, Once out of the E.E.C and while we still have the people to pass on the craft skills and knowledge to do so. Government subsidies for start up projects and government orders for the likes of the R.F.A. would be a great start and would mean we were actually producing something that was beneficial to both the future of the country and the economy.