Time’s up for navy asylum fleet

[MikeJames]

Time’s up for navy asylum fleet

CAMERON STEWART THE AUSTRALIAN MARCH 24, 2014 12:00AM

The navy has lost patience with its faulty patrol boat fleet and wants to fast-track a new generation of patrol boats with stronger hulls that will not crack up under the strain of border protection duties.

The navy’s 14 Armidale-class patrol boats are riddled with defects after being forced to intercept about 50,000 asylum-seekers during the Rudd/Gillard era, a task they were not designed to do.

The Australian understands that the navy will argue against any attempt to extend the life of its current fleet of aluminium-alloy-hulled vessels beyond their life expectancy of 2019. Instead it will ask Defence Minister David Johnston to fast-track the construction of new steel-hulled patrol boats in a move that could see the Armidales retired early and save more than 1000 jobs under threat in the nation’s struggling naval shipyards.

Navy chief Vice Admiral Ray Griggs this month expressed frustration about the re-emergence of structural cracking in the patrol boats, which caused almost half of the patrol boat fleet to be confined to port early this month.

The problem meant that the navy could not provide the required seven patrol boats to Operation Sovereign Borders.

Navy wants its new patrol boats to have steel hulls, rather than the aluminium-alloy hulls of the Armidale class, to make the boats more resilient to rough seas and poor weather. Defence is expected to make this recommendation to Senator Johnston within months. The influx of asylum-seekers between 2008 and last year forced the patrol boat fleet to operate around the clock in large seas and poor weather to rescue and intercept asylum-seeker boats which, by the middle of last year, were arriving at a rate of a dozen a week.

But the overworking of the boats was compounded by design faults and poor maintenance, leading to arguments between the boat’s builder, Perth-based Austal and the maintenance contractor DMS Marine.

The last straw for the navy was the discovery last month of large new structural cracks near the boats’ engine rooms, making them unseaworthy in rough seas. The same type of cracks were discovered in three patrol boats in August 2012, but no design solution was ever delivered to the navy to prevent the re-emergence of the cracking.

The cracks were subsequently found in all 14 patrol boats although some were more serious than others.

As a result, even those patrol boats currently on border protection duty around Christmas Island are not allowed to operate in seas more than 2.5m high, less than half their design capability.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said this month: “Maintenance issues such as this are not unexpected when operating a significant number of maritime assets in a wide range of demanding environments. However, the situation has been exacerbated as a result of the previous government’s failure to protect our borders, which saw our navy and Customs and Border Protection run a non-stop water taxi service to Christmas Island for five years.”

The Armidale-class boats, built between 2004 and 2007, were constructed to civilian rather than military specifications, using aluminium rather than steel, making them suitable for routine border protection duties, but not the relentless high seas usage they have had since 2008.

Austal is currently building eight aluminium 58m Cape-class patrol boats for the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service.

Any decision to bring forward the construction of replacement patrol boats for the navy would put pressure on an already squeezed Defence budget, but could provide relief for the naval shipbuilding industry which is struggling to stay alive as projects start to wind down.

The Williamstown naval dockyard in Melbourne, owned by BAE Systems, is facing the loss of up to 1100 jobs by early next year unless it can secure new work.

[RussF172]

TENIX (now BAE Systems) told them (The Dept of Defence) in around 2002 when the competition for the ARMIDALE's was in full swing between AUSTAL and TENIX that the AUSTAL boats would have problems because of the aluminium hulls. AUSTAL said that is was just sour grapes from TENIX that they lost and their boats with aluminium hulls were just as strong as the TENIX design with steel hulls.

Well, what would they say now? The RNZN went with the TENIX designed boat and they are going very well in heavier seas off the NZ coast than what they get up north here.

I suppose we have to wait and see on the next chapter and hope that we don't loose an ARMIDALE should it crack up. I've been told that the cracks are substantial in some of them. More so than what happened with the FFGs and cracking superstructures. At least that wasn't near the waterline.