9 July 2025
“Want to uck?” might be an alarming phrase the first time someone hears it, but in HMAS Sydney, it’s an everyday question, with an innocent meaning.
Uckers is a game first made popular in the Royal Navy and then by other Commonwealth armed forces.
It’s similar to Ludo, with four players in teams where the goal is to be the first to move all the colourful pieces around the board and into a home base.
The fast-paced board game has many similarities to Parchisi, an Indian favourite.
Most ships have their own established rules. Sydney’s specific rule is that if a four and two – the pennant of the ship – are rolled on a player’s first turn, they may take out all their pieces at once.
The game is well known for its humorous yet blatant cheating and passionate piece displacement.
For medical officer Lieutenant Daniel Antaw, from Perth in Western Australia, playing a game of Uckers is almost a full-time hobby on board the warship.
“It truly is a great way to connect with your fellow crew members and requires a fair bit of concentration to call out the bluffing, intertwined with quick mathematics and tactical strategy,” Lieutenant Antaw said.
'Being aboard this ship gives me a strong understanding of the individual roles everyone plays at sea to keep us all safe.'
The doctor first joined for Sydney’s deployment in 2024, and loved his time at sea so much he came back for the ship’s regional presence deployment in the Indo-Pacific region this year.
While in Sydney, the crew have participated in regional exercises and engagements with personnel from Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, United Kingdom and United States.
The ship is on the way back to Australia, but not before integrating with the UK Carrier Strike Group for Operation Highmast and Exercise Talisman Sabre in Australia’s north.
“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working in the operational space whilst on deployment with other nations and overcoming meaningful complications in an austere environment,” Lieutenant Antaw said.
“Being aboard this ship gives me a strong understanding of the individual roles everyone plays at sea to keep us all safe.”
At the end of the day, there is a similarity between Sydney and the game of Uckers – returning to home base cannot be done without a strong team.
