Royal Navy automation began with saving hands aboard sailing ships

What event started the Royal Navy down the path of automation?

There was no single event: the Navy had pursued labor-saving rigs, block production, and machinery for centuries because people consumed scarce space, food, and water aboard ship.

The Royal Navy had pursued ways to reduce manual work since the age of sail. Rigging arrangements helped British ships sail efficiently with fewer hands, and captured French ships were rerigged to reduce the labor their original rigs required. Mechanized block-and-tackle manufacture is also suggested as an early production-line example. Fewer sailors meant less food and water to carry and less accommodation to provide. Those shipboard limits made labor-saving equipment useful beyond any saving in wages.