 In March 2000, FBM Marine was acquired by Babcock International Group PLC, a major UK based support services, facilities management and engineering company specialising in the support of defence forces worldwide, and renamed FBM Babcock Marine Ltd.The hot moulding process was an adaptation to post war boat building of the method originally developed by de Havillands in the 1930s for "stressed skin" wooden aircraft production, using layers of thin birch plywood sandwiched together with glue over a male mould and "cooked" in a large oven called an “autoclave” By using true mass-production techniques, Fairey Marine were able to turn out vast numbers of identical boats at an unprecedented quality and price.Moulds were constructed from spruce, built up on a steel base plate.