HMAS Ardent P 87/A243 was an Attack class patrol boat. She was built by Evans Deakin and Company, and was commissioned into the RAN in 1968. Vice Admiral Russell Edward Shalders was at one time posted as Executive Officer (2nd in command) of HMAS Ardent. Ardent joined HMAS Barbette in visiting Burnie before inclement weather and a defect in Barbette's starboard generator forced her to return to Melbourne.
Ardent suffered a major fire in August 1969, raising questions about the design of the Attackclass.
The fire damage was repaired at Cockatoo Island Dockyard. She underwent additional refits at Cockatoo Island in 1970, 1974 and 1976.
In November 1977, Ardent intercepted a boat carrying 180 Vietnamese asylum seekers.
Image: HMAS Ardent Ship Crest
On 23 July 1980, Ardent apprehended two Indonesian fishing boats poaching in Australian waters off Derby. Acute participated in a Squadron Exercise off Darwin in May 1981 in company with her sister ships, HMA Ships Adroit, Ardent and Aware, and later participated in Exercise BEACON SOUTH 81 in August.
Ardent was transferred to the Hobart Port Division of the Royal Australian Navy Reserve on 18 June 1982. The patrol boat was decommissioned on 6 January 1994 and redesignated as a General Purpose Vessel with the pennant number A243.
It was assigned as a navigation training ship for junior warfare officers based in Sydney. Ardent was replaced by the Defence Maritime Services vessel Seahorse Mercator.
Ardent was finally withdrawn from service in December 1998 and offered to the government of the Northern Territory, which considered placing it in the Darwin Military Museum, but it remained moored at HMAS Coonawarra until the NT government declined the offer in August 2000.
Image: Ex-HMAS Ardent as KRI Tenggiri in service with the Indonesian Navy in 2005
She was then sold to Britton Marine (Australia) Pty Ltd as MV Ardent in January 2001 for $150,000. MV Ardent was sold to the Indonesian Navy in 2002 and commissioned as KRI Tenggiri (865) on 2 January 2003. As of December 2013 it was still in service, patrolling the Strait of Malacca.