Second LHD on its way to Australia

The hull of the second Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD), one of the two largest ships ever to be built for the Royal Australian Navy, has left Spain bound for Australia.

It was loaded onto the heavy lift vessel, the Blue Marlin, on 10 December and left Spain December 17.

Director of Maritime for BAE Systems Australia, Bill Saltzer, said the hull, constructed by Spanish shipbuilder Navantia, would take approximately two months to reach the company’s Williamstown shipyard where work would start on the consolidation of the superstructure.

“In the last few months, work has proceeded at a rapid pace in preparation for the hull’s arrival,” he said.

“Construction, consolidation and advance outfitting of the four sections of the superstructure is continuing in the Williamstown yard along with the mast modules which were fabricated at our Henderson shipyard in Western Australia.”

Saltzer said work was also continuing on the first LHD, Nuship Canberra.

“We successfully completed Vehicle Trials in October and we are continuing with preparation for sea trials that are due to begin in the first quarter of 2014,” he said.

“The high quality output from our Williamstown and Henderson shipyards reflects the significant effort and investment BAE Systems has made in its people, facilities and processes to ensure solid performance.

“Shipbuilding is about more than having highly skilled tradespeople capable of constructing large steel structures. You need a workforce that is experienced in engineering, consolidating, integrating and testing complex systems and bringing them all together from a ‘whole ship’ perspective. 

“These complex activities are what brings these warships to life and makes them capable of performing their missions.  We are doing this right now in Williamstown on this program and in our Henderson shipyard on the ANZAC frigates.” Saltzer said the progress achieved on the LHD project to date had been the result of a both a local and global team effort.

“Across Victoria and WA, and in Spain and Australia, employees from BAE Systems and our shipbuilding partner Navantia have worked together extremely well. 

“We’ve also seen terrific cooperation from the Defence Materiel Organisation and the Royal Australian Navy, and our major subcontractors, Saab Australia for the combat system and L3 for the communications system,” he said.