Construction
Swan and sister ship HMAS Torrens were ordered in 1964 as replacements for HMAS Voyager, a destroyer lost following a collision with the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne in 1964. Although intended to be the same as the previous River class ships (themselves based on the British Type 12 frigate), the design was changed from 1965 to incorporate many of the improvements of the British Leander class frigates. Work on the two vessels started without specifications or a contract, and the evolving design meant changes were being made as the ships were being constructed, with resulting delays and cost increases attributed to a lack of planning.
Swan was laid down by the Williamstown Dockyard at Melbourne, Victoria on 16 February 1965, and was launched on 16 December 1967 by the wife of the Minister for the Navy, Allen Fairhall. Although the ship had not been completed, she was commissioned into the RAN on 20 January 1970. She was the third ship of the RAN to be named for the Swan River in Western Australia.
Read more about this topic: HMAS Swan (DE 50)
Famous quotes containing the word construction:
“No real “vital” character in fiction is altogether a conscious construction of the author. On the contrary, it may be a sort of parasitic growth upon the author’s personality, developing by internal necessity as much as by external addition.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Striving toward a goal puts a more pleasing construction on our advance toward death.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face:
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)