Australia — Air Warfare Destroyer – Another two blocks delivered

 Min­is­ter for Defence Materiel Jason Clare today announced that two more keel blocks had been deliv­ered to Ade­laide to con­struct Australia’s first Air War­fare Destroy­er.

This fol­lows the deliv­ery of the first keel block last month. 

The blocks were con­struct­ed at the Williamstown ship­yard in Melbourne. 

They were loaded on to barges last week and trans­port­ed to Ade­laide over the weekend. 

Mr Clare said this was anoth­er step for­ward in the $8 bil­lion project to con­struct three new war­ships for the Roy­al Aus­tralian Navy. 

“This is Australia’s biggest ship­build­ing project,” Mr Clare said. 

“90 sep­a­rate blocks will be con­struct­ed to build the three most pow­er­ful war­ships the Roy­al Aus­tralian Navy has ever operated. 

“About 70 blocks like this will be shipped to Ade­laide over the next four years to be con­sol­i­dat­ed into Air War­fare Destroyers. 

“These blocks weigh approx­i­mate­ly 190 tonnes each. They are about 19 metres long, 17 metres wide and five metres high and will form part of the keel of the first war­ship – HMAS Hobart.” 

The steel blocks are being built at ship­yards in Ade­laide (ASC), Mel­bourne (BAE Sys­tems), New­cas­tle (For­gacs) and Fer­rol, Spain (Navan­tia).

Three sonar blocks are being con­struct­ed in Spain and the Unit­ed Kingdom. 

The blocks will now be removed from the barge and trans­port­ed by a large mul­ti-wheeled vehi­cle to the pre-fit-out facility. 

Fur­ther work on the blocks will then be com­plet­ed includ­ing blast and paint, fit­ting pipes, installing com­mu­ni­ca­tions and elec­tri­cal cables and fit­ting inter­nal walls. 

Con­struc­tion has begun on all main blocks for the first ship and work has also begun on blocks for the sec­ond ship, HMAS Brisbane. 

Next year work will begin on blocks for the third ship, HMAS Syd­ney and the first ship will start to be con­sol­i­dat­ed in Adelaide. 

Mr Clare thanked the more than 1,000 peo­ple cur­rent­ly work­ing on the ships across the three Aus­tralian shipyards. 

“The work­ers con­struct­ing these blocks are doing impor­tant work – build­ing new war­ships for the Roy­al Aus­tralian Navy,” Mr Clare said. 

“They’re work­ing hard and I thank them for their efforts.” 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter