A Royal Australian Navy (RAN) clearance diving team has led underwater maintenance work on Virginia-class fast attack submarine USS Vermont while alongside at HMAS Stirling.
Lieutenant Cantona Borg, Officer in Charge of Underwater Salvage Repair at CDT-4, led a team of eight Australian divers on their training block under the watchful eye of United States Navy’s Chief Warrant Officer 3 Michael Tuft, Diving Officer for PHNSY & IMF.
“Being able to demonstrate our newly acquired skills in home waters highlights a key achievement in the scheduled maintenance period and Australia’s ability to work on conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines,” Lieutenant Borg said.
“Working with the Americans in Hawaii allowed us to learn from some of the best there are, and undertake new opportunities we haven’t conducted in Australia before.
“This was a significant learning opportunity for us and only possible thanks to the welcoming support from the American team.”
Working together in the water with United States Navy divers, Clearance Diving Team 4 (CDT-4) personnel have been either the lead or secondary divers for all underwater maintenance as part of Vermont’s scheduled submarine maintenance period at Fleet Base West.
This has allowed the team to demonstrate the skills and capability learnt as part of five months training at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility (PHNSY & IMF) in Hawaii.
During the intense training, the team spent many hours subsurface, completing hundreds of tasking and acquiring advanced underwater maintenance capability that previously had not existed in Australia – in either military or civilian circles.
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Tuft, who has brought a US Navy diving team to HMAS Stirling, said the scheduled maintenance period provided a chance to put into practice all CDT-4 had learnt from a successful training block at Pearl Harbor.
“They intermingled with us seamlessly, they were just like another member of the team,” Chief Warrant Officer 3 Tuft said.
“Our goal is to have a job in Australia or Hawaii, or a fly-away job in another place, and be able to say ‘I need a dive team there’, and with the training we’ve given the Australians, we can now grab some of those guys to meet us in other ports and fix a submarine.
“That’s the goal of interoperability that I’m looking for and we’re well on our way to achieving that.”
USS Vermont arrived at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia for a scheduled maintenance period in late October.
While alongside at Fleet Base West, Australian personnel have been taking on greater responsibility for planning, coordinating and delivering complex maintenance activities on board the submarine to uplift the RAN and industry capability.
The scheduled maintenance period is a capstone event towards Australia becoming sovereign ready for owning, operating and maintaining its own conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines as part of the AUKUS partnership.
The maintenance period was announced earlier this month and it was stated that personnel from the RAN and ASC would work alongside their US counterparts to support over 160 maintenance tasks, including a mobile pure water plant designed by Western Australian companies MAK Water and Diverse Welding to meet stringent US and UK standards.
“Australian Defence Force personnel and industry are working side by side with our AUKUS partners to deliver a demanding maintenance program on a US Virginia class submarine – building the skills and experience that will underpin our sovereign submarine capability,” Minister for Defence, Richard Marles, highlighted at the time.
The Government had claimed that this is the first time a US nuclear‑powered submarine has undergone a maintenance period in Australia without a US support ship.
