Recently 45 members and seven staff from the ANC’s Training Ship Norfolk visited Cairns and the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) Landing Craft Heavy HMAS Brunei.
Sponsored by the RAN, the ANC is a leading provider of youth development experiences that challenges Navy Cadets to develop their leadership potential, reflecting the RAN’s values of honour, honesty, courage, integrity and loyalty.
Serving Redlands City area and Brisbane’s eastern suburbs, Training Ship Norfolk is Brunei’s twinned Cadet Unit. TS Norfolk last visited Brunei three years ago, so a number of the cadets present were making a return visit.
During this visit, Brunei’s ship’s company demonstrated various aspects of the work and life onboard a landing craft, including various damage control, engineering, navigation and amphibious operations.
Commissioned in January 1973, HMAS Brunei was the second of eight Balikpapan Class Landing Craft Heavy ships built in Maryborough, Queensland, with three currently in service in the RAN, and two in the Papua New Guinea Defence Force. The three remaining RAN ships are to be decommissioned in late 2014.