US Navy puts CANBERRA into service in Australian waters

Even before its official commissioning, the US Navy sent its newest INDEPENDENCE-class Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the CANBERRA (LCS-30), to the Australian port city of Sidney for the ceremony on 22 July. This was the first time that a Navy ship was not commissioned in American waters. The move was chosen because of the name, named after the Australian capital, because of the closer proximity of the two countries within the Aukus Alliance and, of course, in honour of the Australian parent company Austal, from whose Henderson Shipyard in Western Australia the design for the trimaran, which is particularly stable in "shallow" coastal waters, originated. Seeing the LCS built by Austal USA in Mobile, Alabama, in front of the Sydney Bridge and the iconic Opera House was a special event for the "Aussies". Austal is involved in eleven shipbuilding projects in the USA and has two Australian boat types on its order books: The EVOLVED-CAPE class guard boats for the Royal Australian Navy and the GUARDIAN class guard boats for the Commonwealth of Australia, which the country lets the Pacific island states use free of charge.