HMAS Sirius celebrated her 5th birthday since being commissioned into the RAN with a cake cutting ceremony held on her bridge. For her crew and her Commanding Officer, Commander David McDonald , this marked a busy year with participation in the TRITON STORM, TALISMAN SABRE and TRITION FURY series of exercises, which have seen Sirius operate with Australian, US and Canadian units. Most recently she demonstrated her ability to dual-RAS and conduct concurrent VERTREP operations.
“This ship achieved Operational Capability four years after commissioning and since then we have achieved capabilities far beyond those originally envisaged when Sirius was first introduced into service,” CMDR McDonald said.
The crew of Sirius is now preparing for her South East Asian deployment which will include participation in the exercises: BERSAMA LIMA, SINGAROO and NEW HORIZON, along with other units from the RAN , and from the Malaysian, Singaporean and Indonesian navies.
[mappress] Source: navy, September 30, 2011