HMAS Vampire (D11)

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For other ships of this name, see HMAS Vampire.

Career Australia
HMAS Vampire at the Australian National Maritime Museum
Ordered:	1946
Builder:	Cockatoo Island Dockyard, Sydney
Laid down:	1 July 1952
Launched:	27 October 1956
Commissioned:	23 June 1959
Decommissioned:	13 August 1986
Status:	Museum ship
Homeport:	Australian National Maritime Museum
General Characteristics
Displacement:	2,800 tons standard, 3,950 tons full load
Length:	118.65 m
Beam:	13.11 m
Draught:	3.88 m mean, 5.49 m maximum
Propulsion:	54,000 shp English Electric geared turbines, two Foster Wheeler boilers, twin screws and rudders
Speed:	30+ knots
Range:	3,030 nautical miles at 20 knots
Complement:	219 + 75 trainees (1980s configuration)
Armament:	Six 4.5-inch (114 mm) dual-purpose guns in three twin mountings; two single and two twin 40/60 mm Bofors AA guns; Mark 10 Limbo anti-submarine mortar; quintuple 21" torpedo launcher
Motto:	AUDAMUS
Badge:	Vampire Bat

HMAS Vampire (D11) was the third of three Australian-built Daring-class destroyers serving in the Royal Australian Navy. She was laid down by the Cockatoo Island Dockyard at Sydney in New South Wales on 1 July 1952, launched on 27 October 1956 and commissioned on 23 June 1959.

Vampire spent most of her career on exercises and tours through South East Asia. Her only wartime duties were to escort the aircraft carrier HMAS Sydney to Vietnam in 1965 and 1966, and to conduct active patrols off Malaya and Borneo during the Indonesian Confrontation of 1966. In 1977, Vampire was tasked as the escort of HMY Britannia during the Australian section of Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee tour of the Commonwealth. ^[1] In 1980, she was refitted as a training vessel.

Vampire paid off on 13 August 1986, and was preserved as a museum ship at the Australian National Maritime Museum at Darling Harbour in Sydney's Port Jackson, where it serves as the museum's largest floating exhibition. Vampire is the largest museum ship in Australia. ^[1]

Vampire was moved to HMAS Kuttabul for refits and maintenance on 18 October, 2006, triggering false rumours that she would be refitted and returned to active service. ^[2] During this refit, which included dry-dock work, a fire broke out in the ship's boiler room. The fire did not cause any irreparable damage, and nobody was injured. ^[3] Vampire was moved back to Darling Harbour on November 29.

[edit] References

HMAS Vampire (II). Sea Power Centre - Royal Australian Navy. Retrieved on January 22, 2007.

^ ^a ^b On the water - HMAS Vampire. Australian national Maritime Museum. Retrieved on January 22, 2007.
^ Brooke, Michael. Destroyer revamped. NAVY News, (Volume 49, Number 21) November 16, 2006.
^ Pride of naval museum catches fire. The Daily Telegraph (Australia), November 2, 2006.