In July 2000 (yes, almost 26 years ago), the Royal Australian Navy’s (RAN) Director of Naval Platforms, Gordon Macdonald, spent two days with his team assessing a novel “stern landing vessel” (SLV), the 35-metre Deepwater used for beaching and extracting 472 tonnes of sand dredged up and stockpiled ashore.
Mr Macdonald witnessed first-hand the beaching and loading of the sand using the two crewmembers, each driving a Caterpillar 966 front end loader, while the vessel held her position perpendicular to the beach with the two engines idling in astern, wind and tide on the side.
The draught of course increased by over 1.2 metres during the one-hour loading cycle, but the design was so unique that the extraction from the beach was a simple change from astern to ahead with both engines and the aft part of the hull slid easily down into deeper water.
