HMAS Darwin boards ‘suspect’ vessel off Hawaiian Islands
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Members of HMAS Darwin have boarded a Canadian vessel during a challenging day of counter piracy operations at RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific) 2012.
Boarding Party officer Lieutenant Andrew Willett says the exercise provided his people with an invaluable test of skill.
“Our boarding party is only newly trained with most of the crew having completed the course at the start of the year. It’s not often that we conduct training by boarding a foreign ship, review our procedures, then put those new skills into action so quickly again,” Lieutenant Willett said.
“Working with people from other countries during RIMPAC gives us valuable experience in overcoming language barriers, unfamiliar ships, and other challenges that prepare the team more thoroughly for real operations.”
The Australians boarded Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship Ottawa, which is training alongside HMAS Darwin.
Petty Officer Stores Naval Pete McKirdy is a boarding party veteran with nine years of experience under his belt.
“We are used to a much smaller jumping ladder so scaling the side of HMCS Ottawa presented more of a challenge. The layout is different and there are a lot more doors which required us to adapt our techniques. There was certainly the element of surprise for us,” Petty Officer McKirdy said.
HMCS Ottawa’s carried out its own successful boarding of the Australian vessel.
The boarding party training will change into a higher gear later in the exercise with Darwin scheduled to conduct a fast rope boarding on the Japanese ship JDS Myoko.
HMAS Darwin is one of 40 surface vessels involved in Exercise RIMPAC 2012, the world’s largest maritime exercise involving 22 nations and more than 25,000 people.