The crew of a unique Royal Navy vessel which has been in Falmouth undergoing a refit, lavished praise on the dockyard before it left for a new deployment off the coast of Northern Ireland this week.

HMS Enterprise, which although a military vessel is owned by its builders Vosper Thorneycroft and contracted to the navy, is a floating science laboratory which travels the globe charting the sea bed in busy shipping lanes, making sure they are safe in war-zones and taking samples for analysis.

This ultra hi-tech vessel is said to be very economical to run and the envy of navies throughout the world. Not only can its sophisticated computers help drive and protect the ship, other equipment on board used to take samples from the seabed and chart for unknown obstacles, has proved hugely successful and the results beneficial not only to commercial shipping but to private sailors around the world.

The Royal Navy crew of the survey vessel are all highly trained, many as scientists. Her commanding officer Adam James is a hydrographical surveyor.

So important has the past six weeks in Falmouth been in order to get the ship back to sea after a lengthy 19-month deployment, Cdr James presented the managing director of A & P Falmouth, Peter Child, with a crest of the ship.

Mr Child said: "These successful maintenance periods including dry-docking have underlined the maritime industrial skills base that lies at the heart of the world class service provided by A&P I look forward to a continued association with the ship and her crew."

Challenges faced by the engineers on board included dealing with the voracious growth of marine flora and fauna within the saltwater systems due to the warm coastal waters in which the ship has found herself.

The crew now looked forward to a period of survey operations in UK waters, followed by operational sea training and then deployment, returning to Africa.