Skipness One Echo
there are one or several rather good British firms doing quite well.
Name them !
This is an island nation that cannot even any longer build the cruise ships for its premier shipping companies. Well ... admittedly P&O and Cunard are technically no longer British (owned by the US operator Carnival) but you get the drift.
MV Oriana - built by Meyer Werft shipyard, Papenburg, Germany
"Ideally Oriana would have been built in the United Kingdom, but unfortunately there were no British shipyards left capable of completing such an order"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Oriana_(1995)
QM2 - built in France
"The RMS Queen Mary 2 (QM2) is a Cunard Line ocean liner named after the earlier Cunard liner Queen Mary, which was in turn named after Mary of Teck, the Queen Consort of George V. At the time of her construction in 2003 by the Chantiers de l'Atlantique... "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QM2
Queen Victoria - built in Italy by Ficantieri
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Queen_Victoria
So, I'd just LOVE to hear where Britain is doing WELL if we can't even build a decent SHIP these days.