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Hi, I’m Lochie Daddo for the National Maritime Museum in Sydney. Now I don’t know about
you but I’ve often thought there’s got to be an easier way to clean my SAAB. It just
takes the kids too long on a weekend. So I thought I’d come and have chat to the experts
and I’m with Phil McKendrick the Fleet Manager at the National Maritime Museum. He’s in
charge of 14 vessels here including this, the HMAS Onslow. How often do you have to
go through the process of cleaning them?
Well the process of cleaning’s done every three years. It’s taken over to the dockyard
and docked, and given a clean and a spruce up.
Phil, so how do we know when a sub is substandard?
That’s very good, that’s a very question so we do inspections on the hull of the submarine.
We have marine divers in the museum and that’s how we know it’s substandard.
But it’s not like the subs out and about so why is it necessary?
No that’s true. It is good food for the fish but it tends to, the marine growth breaks
down the coating, the paint scheme, on the bottom of the ship and it can cause rust and
corrosion.
So tell us, what’s going to happen?
We’re now in transit to go to Thales at Garden Island, and we’ll take it into the
outer Captain Cook Dry Dock and then we’ll dock down the submarine on the blocks, empty
out the dock, pump out the water and then we’ll start to hydro blast the underwater
side of the vessel. So really you can only see so much from the water but once it’s
dry you’ll be able to see a lot of the growth and that will determine how long it’ll take
but possibly two to three days.
From a carwash point of view I pay $2 for two minutes to spray down my car. What are
we paying for this sort of project?
Well you could probably multiply that by a couple of thousand I think. The price to dock
it down and get the hydro blast done is $120,000. Well here we are at Thales Dockyard, Garden
Island and the submarine now sitting on the blocks in the outer Captain Dock. And now
we’re in the process of cleaning the submarine. They’ve got high pressure water blasters
and they run at about 3,000 to 5,000 PSI but it really depends on the extent of the marine
growth on the vessel at what pressure they set. So they’ve got to set those machines
up to remove the marine growth and the rust on the vessels hull. Well what happens is
the marine growth breaks down the paint scheme on the steel hull and that can cause corrosion
and also breach the watertight integrity of the vessel. So it’s very important that
these are done every three to four years to protect the vessel’s steel hull. Well it’s
not typically like your car, it takes two days to clean the hull of the vessel and then
over the next 10 days we’ll be doing the survey of the submarine’s hull with our
Fleet Surveyor Warwick Thomson.
We need to know firstly how our antifoul paint systems work and what problems there are so
that we can have good interaction with the paint manufacturer to solve any problems.
We use the paint that the navy use on their submarines but its stealth black so you can’t
see me and that’s what the submarine’s all about, not to be detected. But it’s
an international paint but it’s a navy paint scheme so we follow the guidelines that the
navy use on their submarines that are in commission today.
Well that was a blast. Okay so let’s have a look at what’s involved. Always get a
scuba diver to check the hull condition. Make sure your sub is ready for the open water.
Get it to a dry dock then make sure, now this is important, make sure you blast the gunk
while it’s still wet otherwise you’ll never get it off, and finally have an open
cheque book. This is not a cheap process. Really it makes washing the car on the weekend
a walk in the park, doesn’t it?