HMNZS Kaiwaka, danlayer (T14)
Converted merchant ship, 1941–1945.
HMNZS Kaiwaka
Built: 1937 W.G. Lowe, Auckland. Type: Danlayer
Pennant No.: T14
Displacement: 169 tons gross, 98 tons net
Length: 88.3 ft./26.9 m Beam: 23 ft./7 m Draft: 7.75 ft./2.3 m
Propulsion: Motor 145 bhp single screw diesel Speed: 10 knots.
Complement: 12
Armament; 1 X light MG, DCs
Kaiwaka was a wooden motor-powered cargo lighter owned by NZ Refrigerating Co. Ltd employed carrying meat to overseas ships off Wanganui.
She was requisitioned on 7 January 1941 for conversion to a danlayer. A danlayer is a small vessel employed in minesweeping operations to lay dan-buoys to mark the limits of the channels swept through a minefield.
She was delivered to the naval authorities on 5 March 1941 and commissioned for service on 21 May 1941 by Lieutenant A. K. Griffith RNZNVR. She was based mainly at Auckland operating with the 25th MS flotilla and occasionally towing targets.
At the beginning of March 1942 Kaiwaka sailed to Suva where she was employed as a danlayer assisting the USN in laying protective minefields in the Nandi area, returning to Auckland on 25 April.
She visited Wellington several times , being temporary port danlayer for two months in 1943.
During October 1943 Kaiwaka and Thomas Currell swept the short lines of mines in the minor channels on either side of Rakino Island in the Hauraki Gulf.
In January-February 1944 she took part in sweeping the independent minefield in the Bay of Islands and in May she assisted with the sweeping of the defensive minefield laid in March 1942 across the main channel in the Hauraki Gulf.
In March-May 1945 Kaiwaka and the minesweepers began a final clearance of the German minefield laid in June 1940 in the approaches to the Hauraki Gulf.
Kaiwaka paid off on 16 September 1945 when replaced by a converted Castle class minesweeper. She was handed over to the Marine Department and refitted but return to her owners was clouded by legal issues over her condition and delayed until 19 July 1947.
