SLN Dockyard

Sri Lanka Navy Dockyard
Trincomalee, Eastern Province in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka Navy Dockyard Location of SLN Dockyard in Sri Lanka
Coordinates	8°33′08.5″N 81°14′16.6″E / 8.552361°N 81.237944°E / 8.552361; 81.237944
Type	Naval Base
Site information
Owner	Ministry of Defence
Controlled by	Sri Lanka Navy
Site history
In use	1948 – present

Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) Dockyard is the largest naval base of the Sri Lanka Navy and a major shipyard located in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka. Established by the British as the Royal Naval Dockyard, Trincomalee it was home to the East Indies Station of the Royal Navy during World War II. Since the withdrawal of the Royal Navy, the Royal Ceylon Navy took over dockyard. It became the home base of the RCyN fleet and today it is home to the Eastern Naval Command and the Naval and Maritime Academy of the Sri Lanka Navy.

Trincomalee which is a natural deep-water harbour that has attracted seafarers like Marco Polo, Ptolemy and traders from China and East Asia since ancient times. Trinco, as it is commonly called, has been a sea port since the days of the ancient Sri Lankan Kings. The earliest known reference to the port of Gokanna is found in the Mahavamsa stating that in the 5th century BC, when King Vijaya who having failed to convince his brother to come to Sri Lanka as his successor, got down his youngest son Panduvasdeva, who landed at Gokanna and was subsequently enthroned at Upatissagama. King Parakramabahu I used Gokanna (Trincomalee) as his eastern port, to launch a successful invasion of Burma in the 12th century.

During the colonial expansion into the Indian Ocean, Trincomalee was occupied by the Portuguese, Dutch, French and finally by the British who used the natural harbour extensively. The Portuguese built a fort to control the area and the Dutch expanded and built another to protect the harbour. The largest of these is Fort Fredrick built in 1624 by the Portuguese and exchanged hands until the British took over it in 1795. The smaller Fort Ostenburg was built on top of Ostenburg ridge at the entrance to the inner harbour of Trincomalee.