HMS Hobart, artist's conception
In the good (or bad) old days, ships were built from the keel up, with the frames rising from the keel, and the plating or planking secured over the frames. These days ships are built in modules, large blocks of steel with piping, wiring and coatings already in place. The blocks are then welded together and a new ship emerges. It is all highly complicated but extremely efficient, at least until there is a mistake. In the construction of the HMAS Hobart, the shipyards building the modules discovered that their blocks don’t fit together.
$8bn navy flagship founders after construction bungle
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The factory fishing ship Athena caught fire early today in the Atlantic, 230 miles south-west of the Isles of Scilly. Eighty one non-essential personnel were evacuated to liferafts and subsequently rescued as the remaining 30 aboard fought the fire, which is now reported to be under control but not extinguished. The Athena was built in 1992, but was rebuilt in China this year due to damage from a previous fire.
All that remains to mark the site of the final sea battle of the First Punic War between Rome and Carthage, around 241 BC, are the great bronze rams left behind after the rest of the sunken ships have rotten away in the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The sea battle and the First Punic War, in general, were victories for Rome, marking its ascent, and Carthage’s decline as regional powers. Three rams have now been found near the island of Levanzo, west of Sicily.
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Last week, the MV Olovaha arrived in Nuku’alofa. The MV Olovaha is a new interisland ferry built for Tonga to replace the 
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