Replenishment at Sea in the Pacific

3 September 2009

HMA Ships Sydney and Ballarat took on much needed fuel as they continued on their homeward journey across the Pacific Ocean on Northern Trident 2009 (NT09).

At the scheduled rendezvous point, the Australian warships met up with the United States Naval Support vessel Henry J Kaiser for an underway Replenishment at Sea (RAS). Henry J Kaiser is the lead ship of her class and is the second ship of this class to refuel the NT09 ships, her sister ship Rappahannock being the first ship to provide fuel to Ballarat and Sydney in the South China Sea back in May.

Routinely conducted by the RAN, RAS allows ships to refuel, take on stores or ammunition when at sea, rather than having to divert to port. Replenishments involve the majority of ship's company and take place while all ships are underway. Whether on the bridge directing the ship's movements, controlling the activity at the replenishment point, handling lines that connect supplying and receiving ships, managing receipt of fuel or stowing stores or ammunition in the ship's holds or magazines, everyone is involved.

"It was a labour intensive task for all the crew in both ships, said Ballarat's Buffer, CPO Boatswain Mark Pahl. The RAS involved the securing of multiple lines fired from the supplying ship to both Sydney and Ballarat and in the case of a US refuelling ship, each ship's crew had to manually haul the fuel probe toward the ship." He said.

The RAS in the Pacific Ocean was a rare chance for the Australian ships to refuel simultaneously from a foreign support ship. Ballarat fuelled on the portside of Henry J Kaiser while Sydney concurrently fuelled on the starboard side. Ballarat took on F76 fuel, a diesel fuel which is used to power the ship's engines. For Ballarat the evolution took over an hour and resulted in embarking approximately 350,000 litres of fuel (or enough to fill up more than 5000 car fuel tanks).