Pinnacle Safety and Training Blog

Pinnacle’s deft touch assists multi million dollar Navy installation

Pinnacle Safety and Training were recently contracted by Thales, at the request of the Australian Navy, to provide Standby Rescue services for Thales employees while they installed eight radar circuit boards on the masts of the HMAS Parramatta and HMAS Ballarat II.

This job entailed:

• The provision of standby rescue services
• The provision of rescue plans and safe work method statements
• The installation of equipment from a difficult access position, 10-15m above a ship deck
• Rigging solid and reliable anchor systems and access lines
• Rope management services
• The installation of diversion systems to redirect rope trajectories
• The selection and correct use of equipment

Pinnacle Safety and Training provided Thales with an experienced standby rescue team and rope access solutions. Our team comprised of two technicians who helped with the logistics of installing the communications equipment from a small platform, which was located around 10-15m above the deck of three Navy vessels.

The Radar circuit boards were heavy and costly, with each being worth $250,000 and eight being installed on each boat.

One panel on its own weighed 80kg, and given their delicate nature, systems needed to be used that would avoid them swinging in any way.

The Pinnacle team set up a rigging system to haul the panels into place and keep them from hitting anything during the process. The also assessed the work area and concluded that if a rescue needed to be performed, it would need to be a full pick off rescue.

Pinnacle now provides this as a regular service to Thales Australia for their Garden Island operation.

Garden Island, located at Potts Point Sydney, is the home port for major fleet units based on the east coast of Australia and is a major marine engineering and refit centre for work undertaken by the Navy and Thales Australia. Thales Australia (formerly ADI Limited) is a primary defence contractor for the Australian Defence Force. The two main users of Garden Island are the Navy and Thales Australia and it is the main base for the Navy Fleet on Australia’s East Coast. Thales Australia manages and operates a graving dock (dry dock), a floating dock and a range of ship engineering and maintenance facilities at Garden Island.