THE FLAGSHIP

HMAS Darwin Flagship for Australia Day 2010

HMAS Darwin Flagship for Australia Day Regatta 2010

Flagship of the 174th Australia Regatta will be HMAS Darwin, carrying on a tradition in which the Royal Navy, Royal Australian Navy and Merchant Marine vessels, including famous liners, have played a focal role since the first regatta in 1837.

HMAS Darwin is an Adelaide-class guided missile frigate built to the US Navy’s FFG7 class design modified for RAN requirements — one of six to be commissioned in the RAN. Of her sister ships Adelaide, Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and Newcastle, the first two are no longer in service but the remaining four ships have recently been modernised.

HMAS Darwin was built by Todd Pacific Shipyards in Seattle, Washington. The last of four built in the US for the RAN (Melbourne and Newcastle were built in Australia) she was launched on 26 March 1982 and was commissioned on 21 July 1984. She has a displacement of 4,200 t and is 138 m long overall with a beam of 14.3 m.

Darwin and her five sister ships were the first Royal Australian Navy ships to be powered by gas turbines for main propulsion. This, combined with a modern repair by replacement policy, has allowed both a reduced complement and a high availability for sea. She is fitted with two General Electric LM 2500 gas turbines driving a single propeller with total power of 30,574 kW for a maximum speed of over 29 knots. Darwin can be underway from cold in 30 minutes. In addition, two forward-mounted retractable auxiliary propulsion units provide a secondary means of propulsion plus excellent manoeuvrability in confined waters. Her range is about 4,500 nautical miles at 20 knots.

The roles of HMAS Darwin include area air defence, anti-submarine warfare, surveillance, reconnaissance and interdiction. The ship is capable of countering simultaneous threats from the air, surface and underwater. She completed a major weapon-system upgrade at Garden Island in Sydney in 2008. Her principal weapons are the Standard medium-range anti-aircraft missile (SM-2MR) and the Harpoon anti-ship missile, both of which are launched from the Mk 13 launcher on the forecastle. A Mk 41 vertical-launch system is fitted forward of the Mk 13 launcher for the Evolved Sea Sparrow missile. A 76 mm gun to counter both aircraft and surface threats is fitted forward of the funnel and one 20 mm Phalanx close-in weapon system for anti-missile defence is located above the helicopter hangars.

For long-range anti-submarine tasks, Darwin is equipped with a flight deck and hangars for two Seahawk helicopters. The Sikorsky S-70B-2 Seahawk is an all weather, twin-engine, three-crew helicopter. Its primary role is undersea warfare for which it carries a range of sonobuoys and can deliver up to two torpedoes. Other roles include over-the-horizon targeting, surveillance, boarding support, search and rescue and utility operations. Its sensors include radar, forward-looking infrared (FLIR) and a magnetic anomaly detector. For close-in anti-submarine defence the ship is fitted with two Mk 32 triple torpedo tubes.

The ship's sensor package includes long-range radars for air and surface surveillance, electronic-warfare surveillance sensors and the Australian Nulka anti-ship missile defence system. Darwin is also fitted with the electro-optical tracking system (EOTS) with combined optical and infra-red sensors for detection and tracking. An Australian software-based command and control system processes information as well as target data linked from other ships and aircraft.

HMAS Darwin, together with her sister ship Sydney have been deployed to the Persian Gulf a record five times — in 1990, 1991, 1992, 2002 and 2004. Darwin was deployed to East Timor in 1999 and was also involved in operations in the Solomon Islands in 2001.