A small navy still needs multiple maintenance slots

Why does a relatively small Royal Navy need more dry-dock capacity?

Because ship numbers on paper do not create availability when too few maintenance slots can return them to service.

A relatively small Royal Navy still needs several ships in maintenance at the same time. The fleet looks smaller in practice because too few vessels can be worked on at once. Owning sixty buses or fire engines with only one maintenance bay would create the same availability problem. Restoring long-neglected fixed docks can now cost more in some locations than building a new floating dock, so maintenance capacity has to be treated as part of fleet strength.