Australia — Pride of the Navy announced

Aus­tralian war­ship HMAS Mel­bourne which is cur­rent­ly serv­ing in the Mid­dle East, has been recog­nised as the best ship in the fleet, with the announce­ment of the 2010 Fleet Pro­fi­cien­cy Awards today.
Mel­bourne was award­ed two of the top prizes, the Glouces­ter Cup and the Spa­da Shield for excel­lence in capa­bil­i­ty gen­er­a­tion, safe­ty, sea­man­ship, reli­a­bil­i­ty and unit lev­el train­ing.

Mel­bourne under the com­mand of Com­man­der Michael Har­ris, RAN, will be pre­sent­ed with her tro­phies when she returns from her Oper­a­tion Slip­per duties in the New Year. Com­man­der Aus­tralian Fleet, Rear Admi­ral Steven Gilmore, AM, CSC, RAN who made the announce­ment today, acknowl­edged the con­sid­er­able effort made in train­ing over the past twelve months.

“It is with great pride that I acknowl­edge the hard work and com­mit­ment demon­strat­ed by the win­ning ships’ com­pa­nies,” said Rear Admi­ral Gilmore.

“The com­pe­ti­tion for the 2010 awards was extreme­ly strong and required every indi­vid­ual to be ded­i­cat­ed to their respec­tive task.

“The excel­lence demon­strat­ed by these ships is world-class, and every mem­ber should be jus­ti­fi­ably proud.”

Mel­bourne wasn’t the only unit to be recog­nised today, with estab­lish­ment HMAS Cairns win­ning the Gov­er­nors Cup iden­ti­fied as the fore­most in shore operations. 

Nowra based 816 Squadron, which oper­ate the S70B2 Sea­hawk heli­copters, were award­ed the McNi­chol tro­phy for being the lead­ing avi­a­tion unit, while replen­ish­ment ship HMAS Suc­cess was acknowl­edged with the Amphibi­ous Afloat Sup­port Group Effi­cien­cy Shield.

Armi­dale Class Patrol Boat crew Attack Two took out the Kel­ly Shield, while for­mer Mine Hunter Crew One was award­ed the Rush­cut­ter Shield. HMAS Wewak was iden­ti­fied as the fore­most in its class, tak­ing out the LCH Pro­fi­cien­cy Shield, while HMAS Mer­maid won the Hydro­graph­ic Excel­lence Award and HMAS Dechaineux won the Sub­ma­rine Fight­ing Pro­fi­cien­cy Award. Media Con­tact: Defence Media Oper­a­tions: 02 6127 1999 or 0408 498 664 

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

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