Two more ships decommission
Posted: 28 Aug 2021 08:54
The Survey Motor Launches Paluma A01 and Mermaid A02 have returned to HMAS Cairns for the last time and will decommission later this month after 32 years service.
Both ships, together with their sisters Shepperton and Benalla, were built at Eglo Engineering, Adelaide, with the first two commissioning in 1989 and the latter two in 1990. All four have spent the vast bulk of their career operating out of HMAS Cairns.
Their replacements are supposed to be variants of the Arafura class OPVs, but that variant hasn't even been designed yet, let alone ordered, so it seems the RAN will be short of hydrographic and survey ships for many years to come.
At the current build schedule the first of the Arafura variants can't commence until 2025 and these will be a mix of mine warfare variants and hydrographic ships, so maybe 2028 commissioning for the first of these variants.
Wonderful forward planning there Navy.
Both ships, together with their sisters Shepperton and Benalla, were built at Eglo Engineering, Adelaide, with the first two commissioning in 1989 and the latter two in 1990. All four have spent the vast bulk of their career operating out of HMAS Cairns.
Their replacements are supposed to be variants of the Arafura class OPVs, but that variant hasn't even been designed yet, let alone ordered, so it seems the RAN will be short of hydrographic and survey ships for many years to come.
At the current build schedule the first of the Arafura variants can't commence until 2025 and these will be a mix of mine warfare variants and hydrographic ships, so maybe 2028 commissioning for the first of these variants.
Wonderful forward planning there Navy.
