Continuing on Five this week is the series that sees Chris Barrie examine a range of machines designed for speed. In this instalment, Chris takes to the water to trace the evolution of the warship, from the cannon-firing galleons of the mid-17th century to modern, stealthy lightweight vessels, packed with firepower and gadgets.

“It takes a lot of power and good design to get something this massive moving at all,” says Chris of the modern warship. “But going that little bit faster than the enemy can be the difference between life and death.” From the mid-1600s to Lord Nelson’s Victory in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, all battles at sea were waged between wooden cannon-firing sailing boats, known as ‘ships of the line’ owing to their formation during manoeuvres. Despite being made of wood, these ships still weighed thousands of tonnes and needed to employ enormous sails to harness the power of the wind to travel at speed.

In the 1840s, the introduction of steam power brought about a revolution in ship propulsion that would result in a new breed of warship. Born of a naval arms race between Britain and France, HMS Warrior became the fastest and most powerful ship in the world when it was launched in 1860. Though Warriorlooked similar to its predecessors –it was still equipped with sails and cannons –the main difference lay below the water line where a huge steam engine sat in the vessel’s bowels. Ten boilers, each heated by four furnaces, produced the steam to power a huge trunk engine, which in turn generated 1,200hp at the propeller. Although the ship weighed some 9,000 tonnes because of its huge cannons and heavy armour, it could speed through the water at an impressive 14 knots, bringing an end to close-quarters ship-to-ship warfare.

At around the same time as Warrior was launched, a weapon was being perfected that would revolutionise naval warfare once more –the self-propelling torpedo. “The destructive power of the torpedo made cannonballs look like conkers,” says Chris. With torpedoes came a new breed of small, fast, lethal boats, designed to face the giant warships in what Chris calls “the naval version of David and Goliath”. Built by British Powerboats in 1942, Motor Torpedo Boat 416 could reach 40 knots and proved a very hard target for the warships. The 416 had three Packard petrol engines that put out 4,500hp, along with a flat bottom which allowed the vessel to ride on top of the water.

In response to the prevalence of motor torpedo boats, the British navy designed a new breed of mid-size ships called destroyers. Launched in 1944, HMS Cavalier was 110 metres long and weighed 2,500 tonnes, but could slice through the ocean at 32 knots –a speed once thought impossible by ship designers. Cavalier’s speed came from 40,000hp generated by a huge steam turbine power unit buried deep in the ship’s hull and measuring half its length. “Time to get my hands on some big machinery,” enthuses Chris as he climbs aboard.

As weapons used in naval warfare became ever more deadly, it was vital that warships also evolved to combine speed, firepower and stealth. At Upinniemi naval base in Finland, the fast attack craft FNS Hamina is quick, high-tech, armed to the teeth and almost undetectable by radar. “[It is] a true 21st-century warship,” says Chris. Built to evade modern heat-seeking missiles, Hamina employs large flat surfaces, sharp angles and special composite materials to absorb or reflect radar. But it also packs a punch, with eight surface-to-air missiles and four surface-to surface missiles with a range of over 100km. An aluminium hull and a carbon-fibre frame, along with two V16 marine diesel engines power this small boat to a speed of 32 knots. “Haminais fast and lethal,” says Chris. “She’s a real force to be reckoned with.”

Friday 7th March at 7:30pm on five