A giant Royal Navy ship has arrived at Birkenhead's Cammell Laird shipyard for a major overhaul.
HMS Daring, a billion pound "state-of-the-art" warship, was towed to Merseyside from its home base at Portsmouth for the multi-million pound engine refit.
Cammell Laird has a long-standing relationship with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as it currently carries out long-term maintenance contracts on part of its fleet of Royal Navy Auxiliary vessels. The yard has also constructed the flight decks for two new aircraft carriers.
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The Daring is an anti-air warfare Destroyer, designed to act as protection for other ships and forces from airborne attack.
The ship has been undergoing maintenance since returning in May 2017 from a nine-month Gulf deployment.
The work in Birkenhead to repair the destroyer's engines - or Power Improvement Project (PIP) - will require holes to be drilled into the sides of the vessels.
In July, it emerged that five of the UK's six Type 45 destroyers were out of action because of technical issues.
The vessels are used for a variety of purposes - as well as defending the fleet from air attack, they are used to hunt pirates, drug runners or submarines, and to provide humanitarian aid after natural disasters.
HMS Daring was last at sea in 2017 for patrols in the Gulf to reassure merchant vessels and keep the sea lanes open for trade.
The upgrade - also known as "deep maintenance" - is expected to be completed by 2023.
Liverpool was the first civilian port of call for HMS Daring in 2009, when it the newest addition to the Royal Navy fleet and billed the most advanced ship in the world by the Guinness Book of Records.
During that inaugural visit, Captain Paddy McAlpine said: "HMS Daring is the first element in the future of the Navy, it's a brand new ship and Liverpool is the first civilian port we have visited. We chose Liverpool because of its rich maritime heritage and we wanted to show off the next chapter in the Royal Navy's history.
"On board we have brand new technologies including a radar which can reach 400-500 miles.
"If we were in the English Channel we would be able to see all of the aircraft in Paris, London and Amsterdam.
"The advanced warfare and weapons on board the ship are the future of the Royal Navy."
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