Single cabins and private showers for women on Navy's new warship

Until now, women have found it difficult to serve on naval vessels because of communal washrooms and mess decks with 16 bunks or more.

But HMS Daring, one of six new advanced Type 45 stealth destroyers being built, has individual, lockable bathrooms where men or women can shower in private and a greater number of single cabins.

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Navy chiefs even predict that over the next ten years, up to half of crew members recruited could be female.

The 7,350-ton Daring, which completed its first month of sea trials off Scotland last week, has 48 single cabins and many two-berth cabins for the 192 crew.

Every cabin has an internet connection and desk space. Each mess has a flat-screen TV with DVD players and worldwide satellite TV. Further comforts include cold drink and ice dispensers, and it is the first British warship with a purpose-built gym.

Only three of the 60 crew recruited so far are women. They include the ship's logistics director, Commander Liz Walmsley.

But Commander Graham Beard, the Royal Navy's equality and diversity policy officer, said: "Daring is giving us real opportunities and flexibility with male and female crewing arrangements.

"There is no logical reason why we couldn't go to a 50-50 male-female crew. Personally and realistically, I don't think we will.

"But I can see, in five to ten years, a 50 per cent female recruitment level if only because of demographic trends, and this type of ship will enable more of them to go to sea.

"Modern ships are increasingly automated and you don't need as much brute strength to run them."

The 492ft Type 45, which can sail 8,000 miles without refuelling, has awesome fire power and is considered the most advanced warship in the world.

Its advanced radar and missile systems will be able to spread a protective umbrella hundreds of miles wide. The ship can track more than 1,000 air targets at once, and destroy a missile the size of a cricket ball flying at three times the speed of sound.

Its principal anti-missile system protects a fleet from every air threat, including swarms of small, supersonic, wave-skimming anti-ship missiles.

HMS Daring, launched by the Countess of Wessex in February last year, was built in sections by main contractor BAE Systems at shipyards in Portsmouth, Barrow-in-Furness and on the River Clyde.

Royal Navy official spokesman Commander Mark Durkin said: "Accommodating female sailors has been a problem. Now, with an increased number of single cabins on the new generation of warships, we will have more flexibility to provide females with better facilities."