| Career (Australia) | |
|---|---|
| Namesake: | Melville Island |
| Ordered: | 2 April 1996 |
| Builder: | NQEA Ltd, Cairns |
| Launched: | 23 June 1998 |
| Commissioned: | 27 May 2000 |
| Homeport: | HMAS Cairns |
| Motto: | "With Determination" |
| Status: | Active as of 2012 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Leeuwin class hydrographic survey ship |
| Displacement: | 2,550 tons |
| Length: | 233.6 ft (71.2 m) |
| Beam: | 49.9 ft (15.2 m) |
| Draught: | 14.1 ft (4.3 m) |
| Propulsion: | Diesel-electric; 4 GEC Alsthom 6RK 215 diesel generators, 4,290 hp (3.2 MW) sustained. 2 Alsthom motors, 1.94 MW, 2 shafts. 1 Schottel bow thruster. |
| Speed: | 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph) |
| Range: | 18,000 nautical miles (33,000 km; 21,000 mi) at 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) |
| Boats and landing craft carried: |
Three 10 metre Survey Motor Boats, equipped with shallow water multi-beam echo-sounders and short range UHF differential GPS Two light utility boats One Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat (RHIB) |
| Complement: | 46 |
| Sensors and processing systems: |
Navigation: STN Atlas 9600 ARPA; I-band. Sonar: C-Tech CMAS 36/39; hull mounted; high frequency active. Atlas Fansweep-20 multibeam echo sounder. AD 25 single beam echo sounder. Also fitted with Klein 2000 towed light-weight sidescan sonar. |
| Aircraft carried: | 1 AS 350B Squirrel (not permanently embarked) |
HMAS Melville is the second ship of the Leeuwin class of hydrographic survey vessels of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Melville is named after Melville Island to the north of Darwin, Northern Territory. Melville is the first commissioned ship of the Royal Australian Navy to carry this name, although the Navy base in Darwin bore the name "HMAS Melville" from 1940 to 1975.[1] Melville and her sister ship HMAS Leeuwin were built by NQEA in Cairns, Queensland.
Melville has the ability to carry three fully equipped Fantome class survey motor boats for surveys in waters not suitable for Melville herself.[2] HMAS Melville can carry a Squirrel helicopter from 723 Squadron.[3]
On entering service, the ship was painted white. Following the start of Operation Relex, Melville was repainted naval grey and began deployments in support of border protection operations in addition to her normal duties.[4]
In June 2003, Melville was sent to south Queensland to inspect the believed wreck location of the Australian Hospital Ship Centaur, which had been torpedoed off Moreton Island during World War II.[5] This had been prompted by several media reports that the wreck was unlikely to be Centaur, and had been wrongly classified since its discovery in 1995.[5] Following up on surveys conducted by the minehunters Hawkesbury and Yarra a month previous, the efforts of Melville confirmed that the shipwreck was not the hospital ship.[5]
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