While the Australian shipbuilding debate has centred on traditional centres Norship Marine business development executive Graham Wharton believes there are at least two north Australian cities missing.
Philip Smart | Adelaide
Norship has a long heritage, going back to North Queensland Engineering Agents (NQEA), who have built more than 270 ships over more than half a century. They include 15 Fremantle Class patrol boats and two Leeuwin Class survey ships for the RAN.
Today Cairns and Norship could also arguably be described as Australia’s patrol boat maintenance capital, with most Patrol Boat dockings being conducted by Norship. This includes the former Customs Service Bay Class fleet under contract to Serco, Armidale Class patrol boats for the RAN and Border Force’s new Cape Class patrol boats. Norship is also refitting Pacific Class Patrol Boats gifted to South Pacific nations under a Pacific Forum Fisheries program. The company has performed more than 150 patrol boat dockings over the past decade.
“We try to fly a bit under the radar, we don’t like to toot our horn too much,” Wharton said. “But there are a lot of innovative things that have been done in this part of the world in regards to in service support and sustainment that not a lot of people are aware of down south. We’ve got three shipyards in Cairns that have been competing for the best part of 50 years and been quite successful, servicing defence for all that time.
“The Fremantle class patrol boats, for example, were designed and built at NQEA and they were also serviced here. A lot of the guys that built those boats and maintained them or served on them are working here at Norship now. The manufacturing capabilities we had in Cairns were equal to anything in the big cities.”
Norship now employs around 180 people at five sites, three in Cairns and one each at Port Hinchinbrook, North of Townsville and Darwin.
Gone are the days of single slipways and swarms of workers descending on a dry-docked ship. In 2009 Norship Marine owner Ray Fry designed and built a larger “travel lift”, capable of handling vessels of up to 400 tonnes. With this device, even 58-metre-long, 350 tonne Cape Class Cutters can be lifted from the water and parked on dry ground for maintenance, easing access and significantly improving the yard’s efficiency. The travel lift also allows Norship to maintain a specialised blasting and painting facility, with vessels moving in and out as needed.
“The first time people see us lift an Armidale or Cape Class from the water they are amazed at how effortless and quick it all happens,” Wharton said. “We can have an Armidale out of the water, washed, racked and guys working on that vessel in about two hours.”
A patrol boat docking can mean a little or a lot of work depending on the customer’s requirements and how the vessel has been used in service, but an average docking will take several weeks. The full Pacific Patrol Boat refits are significant activities.
Pacific Patrol Boat Engine & Gearbox Alignment. Credit: Norship Marine
“We lift the vessel out of the water and strip everything out of it," Wharton said. "Engines, gearboxes, shafts, pumps, pipework, all the internal fixtures and fittings, bunks, just about everything comes out of that vessel. Then we blast the vessel inside and out. The surveyors look at the vessel and determine what part of the ship’s hull structure needs to be replaced. Then we cut out and replace the required areas; our boilermakers handle whatever needs to be repaired or replaced.
“In that time all the engines, systems components and other ship fittings are being remanufactured. The engines, the shafts and propellers are remanufactured and rebuilt and go back in with zero hours on them. The boat is reassembled with final painting and detailing,” Wharton explained to ADM.
“For Norship to successfully deliver all this, we have all the trades that are required to help our clients keep their ship at sea. We have highly experienced fitters, machinists, diesel fitters, boilermaker welders, electricians, shipwrights, plumbers and hydraulics specialists.”
Specialist field
While patrol boats may not have the technical sophistication of a submarine or air warfare destroyer, they too are part of the move to big data and remote asset management. Norship’s trades and marine engineers are increasingly joined by specialists in communications and data management.
“The engines are getting smarter, they’re more powerful and fuel efficient, but they’re still an engine,” Wharton said. “However, the management and control of driveline systems have changed. There’s a lot more technology going in to the back end of it, the operation and the monitoring and measuring is a lot more tech-savvy now.
“Border Force and Navy can now access their vessels remotely and see what all the parameters on all the systems are doing at any one time. And that data can be provided to us by our customer and we can make a call; this needs to be fixed now, or that vessel needs to come in and have a service and that needs to be changed etc.”
Maximising availability of the asset means good relationships with OEMs and adopting new technologies to increase efficiency. Norship personnel increasingly capture vessel refurbishment and maintenance data digitally, replacing a manual paperwork stack that could literally be a metre high by the end of a complex docking. The result is a system that dovetails into Defence’s own asset management reporting systems and also allows trend and issue monitoring.
He believes success is about showing the customer that the company maintaining their expensive vessels is just as committed as they are to gaining the best from that platform. It is about understanding what success means to your customer.
“Defence needs to know that the company they’re contracting the work to is on board with their asset management program, so they actually understand the platform and have a vested interest in ensuring that platform goes back into service and maintains the operability that is required by defence.