Austal ready to embrace drone ships following navy windfall

Its Perth shipyard had been living a hand-to-mouth existence. Now it’s emerged as one of the biggest winners from the federal government’s new navy plans.

The Austal-built US Apalachicola, which is the largest optionally crewed surface vessel in the US Navy.

One of the biggest winners from the federal government’s new navy plans will launch an autonomous vessel for Defence within months, as it looks to demonstrate that technology that will now be at the core of the nation’s navy in the years ahead.

ASX-listed shipbuilder Austal is deep in the process of converting an old Armidale-class patrol boat into an “optionally manned” vessel through the fitting of autonomous and remotely operated systems.

Austal chief executive Paddy Gregg told The Australian that the vessel – which has had its name changed from HMAS Maitland to HMAS Sentinel – would be ready for sea trials later this year.

The demonstration is a precursor for Austal to pursue the construction of six large optionally crewed vessels flagged by the government earlier this week. Those six vessels will each weigh between 3000 and 5000 tonnes, making them larger than anything else in the navy today.

Austal derives the bulk of its revenue from its shipyard in Alabama, where it builds vessels for the US navy and coast guard.

Its Henderson shipyard in Perth has historically lived a hand-to-mouth existence based off limited, short-term vessel con­struction contracts, but the pipeline of work announced by the government opens the door to around 20 years of activity for the facility.

The Sentinel, the decommissioned patrol boat that Austal is converting into an autonomous and remote operable vessel.

The company last year also delivered the US navy with its largest autonomous-capable ship, the expeditionary fast transport US Apalachicola.

While some corners have expressed concern about the unknowns around optionally manned vessels, Mr Gregg said Austal already had experience in a space that would become increasingly important for navies around the world.

“Having a ship that doesn’t necessarily need people in it that can enter a conflict zone is much more preferable to having 100 sailors on a ship that have to go in and fight,” he said.

“It also allows you to deploy more ships; we’ve got a whole lot of coastline and having manned ships to patrol and defend all of it would be very expensive.”

The autonomous and remote-operated capabilities being used in the vessels extend well beyond navigation, with the vessels capable of carrying out basic maintenance work, such as changing out filters, without need of crew.

Mr Gregg said the large optionally crewed vessels flagged by the government could also act as hubs for other autonomous craft such as aerial drones or unmanned underwater vessels.

The new work will see Austal triple the workforce at its West Australian shipyard and allow the company to offer its workers a level of certainty that it hasn’t been able to in the past.

“For the first time in a long time, we can probably offer them a career rather than a job that is based on us winning more and more projects,” he said.

“That allows us to recruit the right people, train them, retain them, and provide a career in shipbuilding. And that results in more certainty around delivery of products for the navy and likely more quality because we have a continuous workforce that are constantly working on ships rather than a boom and bust.”

Austal chief executive Paddy Gregg.

The trebling of Austal’s Henderson workforce to 1200 presents a challenge given tight labour markets, but Mr Gregg said the company believed the long-term work at the yard would help it lure back former workers who had gone over to mining as well as recruit high-quality graduates and apprentices.

Henderson is home to other shipbuilders, and Mr Gregg said there would be a need for expansion, co-operation and potentially consolidation of the yards in preparation for construction of the largest vessels.