Instead of sitting in the drydock supported by numerous props and stays, it would be suspended in a Kevlar cradle on a cantilevered steel frame disguised to look like the surface of the sea.
The current HMS Campbeltown, which is about to be decommissioned, bears the name of a vessel deliberately blown up in an attempt to destroy a drydockin occupied France in 1942.
It said the next voyage would go ahead on Thursday but an Adriatic cruise in October has been cancelled while the ship is repaired in a German drydock.