HMAS ''Aware'' (P 91) was an of the

Royal Australian Navy The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) is the navy, naval branch of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The professional head of the RAN is Chief of Navy (Australia), Chief of Navy (CN) Vice admiral (Australia), Vice Admiral Mark Hammond (admiral), Ma ...

(RAN).

Design and construction

The ''Attack'' class was ordered in 1964 to operate in Australian waters as

patrol boat A patrol boat (also referred to as a patrol craft, patrol ship, or patrol vessel) is a relatively small naval ship, naval vessel generally designed for Coastal defence and fortification, coastal defence, Border control, border security, or law ...

s (based on lessons learned through using the s on patrols of Borneo during the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation, and to replace a variety of old patrol, search-and-rescue, and general-purpose craft. Initially, nine were ordered for the RAN, with another five for

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

's Australian-run coastal security force, although another six ships were ordered to bring the class to twenty vessels. The patrol boats had a displacement of 100 tons at standard load and 146 tons at full load, were in

length overall Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, and is also ...

, had a beam of , and draughts of at standard load, and at full load.Gillett, ''Australian and New Zealand Ships since 1946'', p. 86Blackman (ed.), ''Jane's Fighting Ships, 1968–69'', p. 18 Propulsion machinery consisted of two 16-cylinder Paxman YJCM diesel engines, which supplied to the two propellers. The vessels could achieve a top speed of , and had a range of at . The ship's company consisted of three officers and sixteen sailors. Main armament was a bow-mounted

Bofors 40 mm Bofors 40 mm gun is a name or designation given to models of 40 mm calibre automatic anti-aircraft guns designed and developed by the Swedish company Bofors: * Bofors 40 mm Automatic Gun L/43 - developed in the 1930s with market entry in 1934, wid ...

gun, supplemented by two .50-calibre

M2 Browning The M2 machine gun or Browning .50-caliber machine gun (informally, "Ma Deuce") is a heavy machine gun that was designed near the end of World War I by John Browning. While similar to Browning's M1919 Browning machine gun, which was chambered ...

machine guns and various small arms. The ships were designed with as many commercial components as possible: the ''Attack''s were to operate in remote regions of Australia and New Guinea, and a town's hardware store would be more accessible than home base in a mechanical emergency.''The patrol boat'', Australian National Maritime Museum ''Aware'' was laid down by

Evans Deakin and Company Evans Deakin & Company was an Australian engineering company and shipbuilder. In 2019, the company was inducted into the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame in recognition of its major contributions to the Queensland economy for nearly a ce ...

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

Gillett, ''Australian and New Zealand Ships since 1946'', p. 87 in July 1967, launched on 7 October 1967 and commissioned on 21 June 1968.

Operational history

''Aware'' was transferred to the Adelaide Port Division of the

Royal Australian Navy Reserve The Royal Australian Naval Reserve (RANR) is the volunteer reserve force of the Royal Australian Navy in Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Austra ...

in November 1982. On November the 24th 1970 while with HMAS Adroit on SAR duties HMAS Aware assisted in an attempt to salvage a ditched helicopter from HMAS Albatross after a

Westland Wessex The Westland Wessex is a British-built turbine-powered development of the Sikorsky H-34. It was developed and produced under licence by Westland Aircraft (later Westland Helicopters). One of the main changes from Sikorsky's H-34 was the rep ...

crashed.

Decommissioning and civilian service

HMAS ''Aware'' was the last of her class to be withdrawn from service, decommissioned on 17 July 1993. She was sold to a private owner sometime before 1998, and after modification in Melbourne (including an extension of the superstructure to cover the quarterdeck), was used as a diving and salvage ship. In 2006, ''Aware'' was acquired by a group of investors, and sailed to

Bundaberg, Queensland Bundaberg () is the major regional city in the Wide Bay-Burnett region of the state of Queensland, Australia. It is the ninth largest city in the state. The Bundaberg central business district is situated along the southern bank of the Burnett ...

by a former crewmember. The investors withdrew support shortly after, and the former crew member took over ownership of the vessel. ''Aware'' fell into disrepair, and in 2010, the Bundaberg Magistrates Court fined the owner for failing to have the ship insured. According to the owner, the lack of facilities capable of handling the former patrol boat has made insurance inspections almost impossible. A buyer for the vessel could not be found and in December 2011 the vessel was scrapped.

Citations

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Aware Attack-class patrol boats Ships built in Queensland 1967 ships