Page 54 - Australian Defence Magazine March 2019

SECURITY
BORDER PROTECTION
“Lessons from the Armidale program have been implemented in the support for all 10 Cape Class boats.”
ANAO report
One cloud on this otherwise sunny horizon has emerged via the Australian National Audit Office’s December 2018 report “Cape Class Pa- trol Boats – Inservice Support Arrangements”.
This focused on support for the eight ABF boats, and stated that as of June 2018 the ABF reported that the Cape class boats had yet to achieve the performance and availability requirements for the fleet.
Asked by the ANAO to review selected excerpts from a draft version of the report, Austal did not hold back, stating that the company was delivering the required avail- ability under the sustainment contract and was decreasing maintenance debt.
“However, that outcome is coming at significant and unreasonable cost to Austal which it is not prepared to support in the future” Austal’s review states.
“The costs arise because the ISS (Inser- vice Support) contract is under-resourced in critical areas, in part because there are significant gaps in the ISS Scope of Work. These gaps arise from erroneous assump- tions which were made by the parties re- garding the effort required to maintain the CCPBs (Cape Class Patrol Boats).
“The primary reason for any failure of the (Home Affairs) Department to achieve
the government’s required levels of avail- ability is not, therefore, Austal’s delivery of the ISS... rather, the Department is under- resourced to utilise CCPB availability, pro- vide organisational level maintenance, and provide proper engineering governance,” the Austal statement concluded.
As a parting shot, Austal noted that any ad- ditional maintenance to remediate stern tube issues on the CCPBs “is now being ceased” because the company had satisfactorily dem- onstrated that these issues had been resolved.
Where matters currently stand is a matter of public record, Austal’s Shiner comments. “Currently ABF have chosen to leave some of their vessels alongside because they’re un- able to man them. They’re in discussion with
Austal as to what the long-term plan is. “Our relationship is constructive and col- laborative and we are mutually working to-
gether to resolve a number of issues that will ensure they are available for their long term and intended life.”
Regarding the stern tubes, Boats 1 and 2 had experienced a high rate of corrosion around the stern tube bearings. The bearing was changed as was some of the gasket ma- terial used for the bearing fitment and the design was modified through an engineer- ing change process.
“We are now happy there is no longer an ongoing stern tube corrosion issue that has been dealt with and proven,” Shiner stated.
Unfortunately, Defence was unable to provide a subject matter expert in time for ADM’s publication deadline to attest to the high regard that Navy reportedly has for the ca- pabilities of its two leased Cape class, whose future is now un- derstood to be under discussion.
International sales
However, after an impressive
demonstration by the RAN, the government of Trinidad and Tobago has announced its intention to purchase two new-build Cape class boats which will join six Austal fast patrol craft acquired in 2009,
with delivery anticipated in mid-2020. Singleton expects this first international sale of the class to be formalised before mid- year and become the first major defence export to be funded by the $3.8 billion De-
fence Export Facility.
The Cape Class hull design has also been
used as the basis of an 80-metre OPV, albeit with a steel hull and aluminium topsides, pro- posed by Austal for a Philippines requirement. The proposed design includes a flight deck.
Formal tenders are expected in the next few months with a decision by the end of this year. If successful, the OPVs would be built in what Singleton describes as Austal’s very large, very capable Philippines shipyard in Cebu.
Under a concept dubbed CAPEability, Aus- tal has floated the potential for the proven 58 metre platform to undertake the multi-mission characteristics of a larger, more expensive OPV.
The Maritime Security variant features an operations room, full Intelligence, Surveil- lance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance aviation capabilities, a 30mm stabilised main gun, provision for a short range anti-surface missile system, and a multi-mission bay.
The Mine Warfare variant offers both anti-mine warfare and hydrographic survey mission capability in what the company de- scribes as a fast, efficient package. This in- cludes an operations room enabling data fu- sion and asset coordination, and the ability to use both unmanned underwater and un- manned surface vehicles, swimmer delivery vehicles and mine warfare disposal shots.
Both variants are being thought through but are not part of a current program, Sin- gleton comments.
“We know the Cape is going to be opera- tional for probably 25 years. We’re now six years into the program and at a time of con- siderable overseas interest in the class. Usual- ly when people want a vessel they want some modifications to it, so both those variants are being developed for those applications.”
Meanwhile Austal is self-funding the development of its Marine Link Smart sys- tems control which it will offer to the RAN and ABF as an upgrade to the Marine Link system on their in-service Cape-class boats.
“Currently with Marine Link you press a button and a valve opens or an engine starts and stops, you can direct the flow of fluids around the vessel, or something like that,” Singleton said.
“This data upgrade gives you advice on the best way to operate the vessel in order to max- imise its performance under varying circum- stances. I think it’s the lead-in to converting these ships into an autonomous capability, and it will include greater cyber security.”
54 | March 2019 | www.australiandefence.com.au