Royal Australian Navy’s salute to sailors

The Royal Australian Navy is offering a unique opportunity for family, friends and the public to salute our sailors and officers during the International Fleet Review (IFR) Sydney 2013 with a personal message projected onto the Sydney Opera House sails, the Sydney Harbour Bridge pylons and the National Maritime Museum roof on Saturday, 5 October.

In what will be an historic and impressive event, the IFR Pyrotechnics and Lightshow Spectacular, commencing at 7.40pm on 5 October, will include 300 personal messages as part of the 30-minute show.

The IFR celebrations being held in Sydney from 3 to 11 October will commemorate the 1913 arrival of the first Royal Australian Navy fleet by re-enacting the entry of the original seven ships into Sydney Harbour.

The highlight of the week-long celebrations will be the IFR Spectacular, which is a complex, highly choreographed pyrotechnics, imagery projection, lighting and live action show centering around Sydney’s iconic Harbour, Opera House and Bridge. It will be broadcast live on ABC1 and News24.

Captain Nick Bramwell, Director of the International Fleet Review said, the Royal Australian Navy has served Australia with pride for over one hundred years.

“Salute the Sailors is an exciting and unusual way for people to recognise individuals, crews or ships, and thank them for their service – it’s a shout out on a pretty epic scale”

This is a unique and once in a lifetime opportunity to show your pride in Navy and its serving members by submitting a message of no more than 160 characters via the IFR website: http://www.navy.gov.au/ifr/get-involved.

The cut off date for entering your “Salute” is Wednesday, 4 September.

For more information visit: www.navy.gov.au/ifr.

Media contacts:

Lieutenant Andrew Herring, International Fleet Review: 0410 456 676

Defence Media Operations (02) 6127 1999