Operation Calypso - Royal New Zealand Navy

FLEET PROGRESS
HMNZScanterBUry
brisbane
dry doCking
B y l M t ( l ) r O B e r t S O n a n d a M t ( l ) ship for the arrival to the dry dock in Brisbane.
graHaM
This required a whole ship wash down and a
Over the last month HMNZS CANTERBURY lot of cleaning to be done to pass Australian
has been undertaking our first docking period in customs inspections. The next day was an early
the FORGACS dry dock in Brisbane. It has been start with SSD closing up in the early hours of
a hectic time for the ship with the workload the morning for a gruelling six hour trip up the
increasing and crew numbers dropping. Brisbane River.
To begin with it appeared that CANTERBURY Once we had berthed alongside at FORGACS
didn’t want to go into dock with a turbo failure it was time for us to ditch gash and have the
on our STBD main engine forcing us back Australian customs carry out their inspections.
to Auckland for repairs and then an injector When we finally secured for the day we uplifted
blockage when we got back to sea. But after the keys for our accommodation and got
some serious man hours on the turbo, and settled in as another long day lay ahead for us
then some awesome work on the injectors by the next day. Another early start and we were
the Marine Engineers, in fairly tough working into it, from tagging out the majority of ships
conditions, the issues were sorted.
systems to assisting with getting a generator
Our focus then changed to prepping the onboard to run the ships electricity while in
30 NT162AUGUST11
dock, and just in general getting CANTERBURY
ready to lower down onto the blocks of the
dock bottom.
Now with the ship in place, it gave us all a
chance to inspect and have a good look at and
around the ships hull. It was a good learning
experience and a chance to grasp the true
size of HMNZS CANTERURY when standing
underneath the ships bottom.
Over the dry docking period a number of
major key jobs were carried out, not just by
the Ships Company but the dockyard workers.
Everything from a smooth hull and new paint
job, to pulling the shafts, rudders and props,
to changing the underwater valves and a lot of
other valve maintenance. Also tanks and voids
had to be opened and inspected and cleaned.
A lot of hours were put in by the engineering
department working six days a week and some
late nights to make up on any lost time.
The Ships Company were also very lucky
because it was a big sporting month in
Brisbane. A lot of Ships Company attended
the semi final of the Blues vs Reds and were
there for the rugby final with Crusaders taking
on the Reds, which was a good night despite
the Crusaders going down. Also some of the
senior rates and officers were lucky enough to
get tickets for the 3rd and final State of Origin
game. The rest of Ships Company had a
great time outside the stadium soaking up the
atmosphere with some very excited locals.
While alongside in Brisbane the ships
company that remained with the ship were
accommodated at the Econolodge in Kangaroo
point approximately 7km from the dockyard.
The standard of the accommodation was top
notch and with our scran being prepared at
the Pineapple Hotel and bar across the road
from the accommodation its fair to say that
some good times were had by all and that we
were all thankful to be able to get away from
the dock and the insane heat onboard from
no ventilation.
As a whole the trip has been hard work but we
all managed to make the most of our down time
and after a successful maintenance period we
are sure most of us were ready to come home
and get the next maintenance period out of the
way and get back to sea.
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