HMAS Townsville (FCPB 205), named for the city of Townsville, Queensland, was a of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Built by NQEA, Cairns, the ship was laid down in 1979, and commissioned into the RAN in 1981. Assigned to the naval base , Townsville was primarily assigned to fisheries protection and border patrol operations in northern Australian waters. In December 1981, the patrol boat recaptured an escaping illegal fishing vessel. The next year, she was used for filming of the Patrol Boat television series. Townsville was deployed to Fiji as part of Operation Morris Dance in May 1987. Townsville was decommissioned in May 2007. The ship was donated to the Townsville Maritime Museum for preservation. Attempts to put the ship on display stalled and the ship fell into disrepair, with the maritime museum acquired by Port of Townsville in 2015. Design and construction Starting in the late 1960s, planning began for a new class of patrol boat to replace the , with designs calling for improved seakeeping capability, and updated weapons and equipment. The Fremantles had a full load displacement of , were long overall, had a beam of , and a maximum draught of . Main propulsion machinery consisted of two MTU series 538 diesel engines, which supplied to the two propeller shafts. Exhaust was not expelled through a funnel, like most ships, but through vents below the waterline. The patrol boat could reach a maximum speed of , and had a maximum range of at . The ship's company consisted of 22 personnel. Each patrol boat was armed with a single 40 mm Bofors gun as main armament, supplemented by two .50 cal Browning machineguns and an 81 mm mortar, although the mortar was removed from all ships sometime after 1988. The main weapon was originally to be two 30 mm guns on a twin-mount, but the reconditioned Bofors were selected to keep costs down; provision was made to install an updated weapon later in the class' service life, but this did not eventuate. Townsville was laid down by NQEA, Cairns on 5 March 1979. She was launched on 16 May 1981 by the wife of Queensland Governor James Ramsay. The ship was commissioned into the RAN on 18 July 1981, and assigned to the naval base at . The patrol boat has variously been nicknamed "The Black Knight Mustang 205" and "Wily Coyote" (the latter after the