"Success" was laid down by Cockatoo Docks & Engineering Company at the Cockatoo Island Dockyard in Sydney on 9 August 1980. She was launched on 3 March 1984, and commissioned into the RAN on 23 April 1986. "Success" is the largest ship to ever be built in Australia for the RAN, and is the largest ship to be built in Port Jackson (the port of Sydney). She was also the last major vessel to be constructed at Cockatoo Island Dockyard. In June 1983 the contract were renegotiated while construction was underway, with the acceptance date being extended by three years and the project cost increased to $187.3 million. The cost and time overruns were primarily due to protracted dispute between the Commonwealth and the builder over the drawings and specifications received from France, with evidence that the Department of Defence underestimated the extent of the differences between the original Australian building specifications and those supplied. Additional factors in the time and cost increases were a lack of tradesmen skilled in naval construction, overly bureaucratic management, and low labour productivity. The final project cost was estimated at $197.41 million; the dramatic increase in cost prevented the construction of a planned second ship.