- Author
- Editorial Staff
- Subjects
- Infrastructure and Facilities
- Tags
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- RAN Ships
- None noted.
- Publication
- March 2025 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
In March 2025 the RAN and Garden Island celebrate the 80th anniversary of the famous Captain Cook Graving Dock. This immense piece of ‘naval hardware’ has always been the most popular item on the Society’s tours of Garden Island, conducted by our many volunteers.
Looking back
When the first flagship of the new Royal Australian Navy, the battlecruiser HMAS Australia, was docked locally for the first time in May 1914, she was placed into the Sutherland Dock at the Commonwealth Naval Dockyard at Cockatoo Island in Sydney.
When the Sutherland Dock was completed in 1890 it was one of the biggest graving docks in the world, yet it needed to be enlarged to accommodate the new battlecruiser. In the report on his Naval Mission to Australia in 1919, Admiral of the Fleet, Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa, discussed the need for improved docking facilities in Australia. However, nothing was done to improve such facilities for RAN for nearly two decades.
Then in December 1938 the Commonwealth sought advice from the United Kingdom on the site and design for a new dock capable of docking the largest capital ships and merchant ships like Cunard’s Queen Mary. Appointed to advise on sites and designs, Sir Leopold Saville of Sir Alexander Gibb and Partners, recommended that the dock be built between Garden Island and Potts Point on Sydney Harbour. The plan was approved by the Australian War Cabinet on 1 May 1940.
Site work began in mid-1940, with building of a large cofferdam in December to enclose about 13.4 hectares of Sydney Harbour. Work on the construction of the dock proceeded night and day, seven days a week, and by July 1943 the workforce on the project peaked at 4,125.
By the end of 1944 the new dock was almost complete – a massive achievement in the difficult times of World War II. The first ship to use the dock was the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious on 2 March 1945 and the dock was officially opened on 24 March 1945 in time to serve the carriers and battleships of the British Pacific Fleet and the ships of the RAN for which it had been built.
The dimensions of the new dock, named the Captain Cook Graving Dock, were a little bigger than those recommended by Jellicoe in 1919, with a length of 1,139 feet 5 inches (347.29 m) and a width of 147 feet 7½ inches (45 m). It had an intermediate caisson enabling the dock to be divided into two. Since March 1945 the dock has been in continuous use. As well as RAN ships, naval vessels from Britain, France, New Zealand, the USA and Pakistan have used the dock. Many commercial vessels ranging in size from tugs and ferries to cruise ships have also been docked there.
Today the dock is a major national strategic asset.