Ex-HMAS Adelaide

Current status: closed

NSW Crown Lands closed the dive site in July 2024 because of structural damage from storms and coastal processes. A structural survey in November 2024 found the aluminium superstructure had broken away from the hull and collapsed, and further storms in January 2025 are expected to have caused more movement.

Crown Lands lists entrapment in collapsed passageways, cut and crush injuries from jagged panels and shifting debris, and decompression risk from the depth as hazards. The mooring buoys have been removed and the yellow navigation markers have moved from their original positions. Check the Crown Lands closure notice for the current status before planning a dive.

The ship

Adelaide was the first of the Royal Australian Navy’s Oliver Hazard Perry class guided missile frigates. She was built in Seattle, commissioned on 15 November 1980 and decommissioned in January 2008. She displaced about 4,100 tonnes and was around 138 metres long, driven by gas turbines rather than steam.

Her service included deployments to the Persian Gulf and East Timor, and in 1997 she rescued round-the-world yachtsmen Tony Bullimore and Thierry Dubois from the Southern Ocean.

The wreck before the collapse

The ship was scuttled on 13 April 2011 and came to rest upright on sand, with a slight list to port. The seabed was measured at 34.5 metres at the bow and 33.2 metres at the stern, with about 8 metres of water over the top of the main mast at low tide.

Before the closure, divers could follow the bow line down and swim the length of the hull, past the forward lockers and torpedo station to the helicopter hangars at about 26 metres. The bridge sat at about 20 metres. Forward, a large round opening where the Harpoon missile launcher had been removed led down through the lower decks, and the engine room lay at about 32 metres. Much of the superstructure described here has since collapsed, so these routes should be treated as history, not a dive plan.

Marine life

Monitoring surveys for NSW DPI between 2011 and 2016 found the number of fish species on the wreck growing over time, reaching 32 species in 2016. Yellowtail kingfish, silver sweep, red morwong and silver trevally were recorded in most surveys, along with schools of eastern hulafish, and wobbegong and Port Jackson sharks were seen later on. No marine pests were found.