page_title: HMAS Choules
section_title: Australia
hierarchical_section_title: HMAS Choules / Operational history / Australia
caption_attribution_description: English: Starboard side view of HMAS Choules, alongside at Fleet Base East
context_page_description: HMAS Choules is a Bay-class landing ship that served with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary from 2006 to 2011, before being purchased by the Royal Australian Navy. The vessel was built as RFA Largs Bay by Swan Hunter in Wallsend, Tyne and Wear. She was named after Largs Bay in Ayrshire, Scotland, and entered service in November 2006. During her career with the RFA, Largs Bay served as the British ship assigned to patrol the Falkland Islands in 2008, and delivered relief supplies following the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
  At the end of 2010, Largs Bay was marked as one of the vessels to be removed from service under the Strategic Defence and Security Review. She was offered for sale, with the RAN announced as the successful bidder in April 2011. After modifications to make her more suited for Australian operating conditions, the vessel was commissioned in December 2011 as HMAS Choules, named after Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy Chief Petty Officer Claude Choules. A propulsion transformer failure kept the ship out of service between July 2012 and April 2013.
context_section_description: On 24 February 2012, Choules arrived in Townsville. This was in preparation for a month of amphibious warfare training exercises with the Australian Army's 3rd Brigade.
  In June 2012, one of the two main electrical transformers involved in the ship's propulsion system failed, after an earlier engineers report highlighted "overheating of the propulsion motors and transformers". Inspection found that insulation failure had short-circuited the transformer, while other transformers aboard showed premature wear. Unable to find an available spare, a new unit had to be ordered from the manufacturer. In June, it was predicted that Choules would be out of service for four to five months, but by October, claims were made that the ship would be inoperable until at least January 2013, and if all of the wear-showing transformers were replaced, she would not return to service until April 2013. By December, the faulty transformer had been replaced, and the RAN had decided that although the other transformers (propulsion and others) had been shown to have acceptable levels of wear, all would be replaced before Choules was reactivated. These repairs were completed in early 2013, and the ship was assessed as ready to re-enter service on 12 April.
  For a short time from July 2013, Choules was anchored offshore of the Manus Regional Processing Centre in Papua New Guinea to provide temporary accommodation for Department of Immigration and other personnel, due to a lack of accommodation at the Centre. In April 2015, the ship transported 46 Vietnamese asylum seekers back to Vũng Tàu, after their vessel was intercepted at sea on 20 March by Australian border protection units and their claims were rejected after interviews at sea lasting less than 40 minutes.
  Choules' operational role was reevaluated after the Canberra-class landing helicopter dock ships entered service in 2016, but will likely be kept on to fill the role of the strategic sealift ship envisioned by the 2009 Defence white paper.
  In March 2017 Choules was sent to Queensland to support recovery after Cyclone Debbie.
  Choules was deployed to Vanuatu on 30 September 2017 to aid in the rescue of 11,000 people from a volcanic eruption of Monaro Voui.
  In January 2020, Choules was deployed to the coastal town of Mallacoota in East Gippsland, Victoria, to evacuate thousands of people trapped by bushfires and to ferry them south to Hastings in Western Port Bay.
caption: HMAS Choules at Fleet Base East in January 2012. The ship's temporary hangar structure is visible behind the superstructure.
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