HMAS Geraldton (FCPB 213)
HMAS "Geraldton" (FCPB 213), named for the port city of Geraldton, Western Australia, was a "Fremantle" class patrol boat of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Design and construction. Starting in the late 1960s, planning began for a new class of patrol boat to replace the "Attack" class, with designs calling for improved seakeeping capability, and updated weapons and equipment. The "Fremantle"s had a full load displacement of , were long overall, had a beam of , and a maximum draught of . Main propulsion machinery consisted of two MTU series 538 diesel engines, which supplied to the two propeller  shafts. Exhaust was not expelled through a funnel, like most ships, but through vents below the waterline. The patrol boat could reach a maximum speed of , and had a maximum range of at . The ship's company consisted of 22 personnel. Each patrol boat was armed with a single 40 mm Bofors gun as main armament, supplemented by two .50 cal Browning machineguns and an 81-mm mortar, although the mortar was removed from all ships sometime after 1988. The main weapon was originally to be two 30-mm guns on a twin-mount, but the reconditioned Bofors were selected  to keep costs down; provision was made to install an updated weapon later in the class' service life, but this did not eventuate. "Geraldton" was laid down by North Queensland Engineers and Agents at Cairns, Queensland on 3 May 1982, launched on 22 October 1983, and commissioned into the RAN on 10 December 1983. Fate. "Geraldton" was decommissioned on 7 October 2006. The patrol boat was broken up for scrap in Darwin during 2006 and 2007, at a cost of $450,000 to the Australian government.