Senior Officers Boat MB 172

MB 172 was built in 1937 at Garden Island Naval Dockyard, Sydney as a Royal Australian Navy District Officers’ Boat with the official Navy pennant number MB 172. It spent its working life initially in Darwin, then Port Phillip and Jervis Bay. After World War II it became a Senior Officers Boat. MB 172 was retired from the Navy in the late 1980s. In 2012 it was still in use as a VIP launch, but it is now working for the Australian National Maritime Museum.

MB 172 was one of at least four very similar craft built for naval dockyard officer's use in ports around Australia and Papua New Guinea. Two of the others were MB 168 and MB 170, and third is Janet built in the 1920s. The original cabin arrangement featured an open steering position for the helmsman.
The hull is carvel planked in spotted gum with a teak cabin, a heavy and robust construction method. It is almost 12 metres long and currently powered by a Volvo diesel engine.

A search of Royal Australian Navy records indicates MB 172 spent a short period in Darwin Harbour before being sent to the naval shore establishment HMAS LONSDALE in Port Melbourne in 1940. LONSDALE was established in 1940 for the receipt and dispatch of naval recruits during World War II. MB 172 remained there as the NOIC’s (Naval Officer in Charge) launch where it was primarily used as the Naval College tender. From 1957 and through the 1960s and 1970s MB 172 was attached to the Royal Australian Naval College (RANC) at HMAS CRESWELL at Jervis Bay, New South Wales.

When MB 172 was decommissioned, it was stored ashore and stripped of all equipment that could be used elsewhere. In the late 1980s it was transferred from the Royal Australian Navy to the Australian National Maritime Museum. Apprentice shipwrights at Australian Defence Industries rebuilt the launch at their yard in Ryde, New South Wales and fabricated fittings at their Rosebery foundry.