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Naval ship scrapped at Henderson had whisky bottle stash for 35 years

Tim SlaterWeekend Kwinana Courier

A BURIED treasure that had been hidden in the former warship HMAS Sydney for 35 years has been discovered while the ship is being scrapped at a dockyard in Henderson.

During construction of the ship in 1982 at the Todd Pacific Shipyards in Seattle, the build team put a small bottle of whisky wrapped in pipe insulation in the forward starboard leg of the main mast.

There it remained undetected throughout the ship’s service in the Royal Australian Navy before it was decommissioned in November 2015.

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Workers at the Birdon company in Henderson received word earlier this month from a former Todd employee that the bottle could still be there and cut away the mast to reveal a small bottle of six-year-old Canadian whisky.

Former HMAS Sydney crewman Brenton Freind said, “the amount of times I’ve walked past that post and not knowing, if only”.

Darin MacDonald said the six-year-old Canadian blend was now 41-year-old whisky.

“Probably about time to get into it with some Canada dry ginger ale over ice; only fitting,” he said.

Ja Worsley found it ironic there had been Canadian whisky on a US-made warship ship that served Australia for many years.

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