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Diving Tenders

Ex-Royal Navy commander praised for saving lives after New Zealand naval ship sinks

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7th October 2024 at 12:33pm

HMNZS Manawanui had been under the command of ex-Royal Navy officer Commander Yvonne Gray (Picture: New Zealand Navy Today)

A former Royal Navy officer who now serves in the Royal New Zealand Navy has been praised for her decision to evacuate everyone aboard the stricken HMNZS Manawanui. 

Commander Yvonne Gray gave the order for all hands to abandon ship when it ran aground and caught fire off the coast of Samoa – it then listed heavily and 12 hours later was entirely submerged

Chief of Navy, Rear Admiral Garin Golding, said she made the “right decision” to evacuate the 75 people aboard, which “saved lives”.

He added: “Evacuating a ship at night is an incredibly complex and dangerous task.”

Defence Minister Judith Collins says a Court of Inquiry will establish how the Navy ship crashed into a reef.

She called the evacuation “something of a triumph, frankly”, given the difficult conditions.

HMNZS Manawanui crew saved Samoa 051024 CREDIT Samoa Fire and Emergency Services Authority FACEBOOK
The decision of Cdr Gray to abandon ship has been praised as all 75 crew and passengers were rescued (Picture: Samoa Fire and Emergency Services Authority)

Originally from Harrogate in Yorkshire, Cdr Gray took the helm of the RNZN’s dive, hydrographic and salvage vessel HMNZS Manawanui in December 2022.

Her career began in the Royal Navy when she joined in 1993, after spending university holidays at a Sea Cadet facility in the Lake District.

She spent most of her junior career at sea, including on the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible and the minehunters Walney, Bridport and Cromer, after specialising as a Mine Warfare Officer.

After completing the Principal Warfare Officer course in 2004, she joined HMS Westminster as the PWO (Underwater) and Operations Officer, with operational experience in West Africa, Northern Europe and the Gulf.

HMNZS Manawanui CREDIT NEW ZEALAND NAVY
Cdr Gray said taking command of HMNZS Manawanui in December 2022 ‘was that opportunity that made my eyes light up’ (Picture: Royal New Zealand Navy)

Following a posting to the Maritime Warfare Centre in Portsmouth, she took the opportunity in 2009 to work with the Royal Australian Navy at HMAS Watson, Sydney.

Cdr Gray then moved to New Zealand in 2012 after a campervan holiday where she and her wife fell in love with the country.

Speaking to New Zealand’s Navy Today magazine in 2022, she said: “How do we get to live here, we asked ourselves,” adding: “The most obvious thing was to apply to join the Royal New Zealand Navy.”

On taking command of HMNZS Manawanui, Cdr Gray said: “It was that opportunity that made my eyes light up.”

HMNZS Manawanui returns from South Pacific deployment

Working alongside Royal Australian Navy forces, disposing of Second World War bombs in Vanuatu, marching in a street parade in Tonga and surveying areas of the sea floor in Ha’apai has kept the Royal New Zealand Navy Littoral Warfare Force busy.

10 July, 2024

HMNZS Manawanui arrived back at Devonport Naval Base on Wednesday, allowing the crew to take a well-earned break after the busy deployment.

Commander Yvonne Gray has now led HMNZS Manawanui through two Operation Calypso deployments to the South West Pacific, and says the highlight of this one was completing the disposal of five 1000lb bombs located in around 20 metres of water in Port Vila harbour.

Five Maritime Explosive Ordnance Disposal (MEOD) divers from the expeditionary unit HMNZS Matataua used low order charges to crack the bombs open, filling them with sea water and rendering them safe with minimal disturbance to sea life and the reef.

“From the planning at Headquarters Joint Forces in New Zealand and at HMNZS Matataua, through to the liaison and cordon support from the Vanuatu Mobile Force, Vanuatu Police, and the Vanuatu Ports and Harbour Authority, this was an effective and efficient operation that really demonstrated the team effort between the New Zealand Defence Force and Vanuatu officials,” said Commander Gray.

Able Rating Nicole Anderson was the lead hydrographer embarked on the ship, working with HMNZS Matataua’s Survey Search and Rescue (SSR) team to complete a survey of a 41 nautical miles squared area in Ha’apai, Tonga, in just 72 hours.

“We’d been asked by the Government of Tonga to carry out the hydrographic survey, which will improve safety of navigation after the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano and subsequent tsunami in January 2022.  We were joined by two hydrographers from the Republic of Fiji Navy and one from the Tongan Royal Navy, which gave them some valuable experience and meant they were part of an important task which will benefit all Pacific nations and mariners when navigating in and around Tonga.”

The SSR and MEOD teams were just two of the deployable teams who joined HMNZS Manawanui for the operation.

Diving Tender – Manawanui – iv

HMNZS Manawanui is a multi-role offshore support vessel currently commissioned in the Royal New Zealand Navy. The ship replaces two decommissioned vessels, the hydrographic survey ship HMNZS Resolution and the diving support vessel HMNZS Manawanui.[4]

Defence officials reviewed 150 vessels before identifying the 85-metre Norwegian built MV Edda Fonn as suitable for conversion. It was delivered in May 2019 and commissioned on 7 June of the same year. Edda Fonn is equipped with the diving and hydrographic systems required by the Navy.

HMNZS Canterbury and HMNZS Manawanui. Manawanui arriving in Auckland
HMNZS Manawanui is a multi-role offshore support vessel currently commissioned in the Royal New Zealand Navy. The ship replaces two decommissioned vessels, the hydrographic survey ship HMNZS Resolution and the diving support vessel HMNZS Manawanui

Diving Tender – Manawanui – iii

HMNZS Manawanui (A09) was commissioned in 1988 as a diving support vessel for the Royal New Zealand Navy. Originally she was built as a diving support vessel, the Star Perseus, for North Sea oil rig operations.

Manawanui is the third ship with this name to serve in the New Zealand Navy. Manawanui is a Māori word meaning “to be brave or steadfast”.

Manawanui has a capability to hold station over a fixed position. She has a triple lock recompression chamber, a crane with 13 tonne lifting capacity, wet diving bell and a small engineering workshop. She also has limited deck cargo carrying capacity.

The divers of the New Zealand Navy who work onboard Manawanui are trained for deep diving with mixed gases, underwater demolition and unexploded ordnance disposal.

An ROV operated from the Manawanui returned photos of the wreck of the MV Princess Ashika, which sank near Ha’apai, Tonga on 5 August 2009.[2]

The vessel was decommissioned at Devonport Naval Base on February 23, 2018.[3][4]

In July 2018 the ship was sold to the Major Projects Group, an Australian demotions company, and has been renamed as the MV Ocean Recovery.[5] The ship will be used by the Major Projects Foundation[6] (which was founded by the company) as a research and education vessel, with a focus on investigating and preventing oil spills from sunken ships in the Pacific.[7][8]

The new owners, Paul and Wilma Adams, plan to base the ship at Carrington, part of the Port of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. They plan for the ship to be the diving base for work in Chuuk Lagoon (Truk) and more generally in the Federated States of Micronesia, where the US Navy conducted Operation Hailstone in 1944 and sank numerous warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy along with merchant ships. They plan for cathodic protection to be applied to the wrecks, to reduce the chance of further discharge of bunker oil into the lagoons

Diving Tender – Manawanui – ii

HMNZS Kahu (A04) was a Moa-class inshore patrol vessel of the Royal New Zealand Navy. She was launched in 1979 as the lead boat of her class, modified to function as a diving tender. She was initially named HMNZS Manawanui (A09),[1] the second of soon to be four diving tenders with this name to serve in the New Zealand Navy. As a diving tender she participated in the exploration and salvage work of the wreck MS Mikhail Lermontov in March 1986.[1]

On 17 May 1988, she was renamed Kahu (A04) and recommissioned as the basic seamanship and navigation training vessel attached to the Royal New Zealand Naval College. Kahu is the second boat with this name to serve in the New Zealand Navy. (The name comes from the Māori-language kāhu – the name for the native swamp harrier hawk.) The ship was replaced in her role as a diving tender by HMNZS Manawanui (A09).

She remained in service for seamanship, Officer of the Watch training and as a backup diving tender until her decommissioning on 30 October 2009. The ship was sold for use as a pleasure craft on 18 February 2010.[2]

Kahu was distinguished from other boats of the Moa class by the gantry on her quarterdeck and lack of funnels.

HMNZS Manawanui

Post RNZN Career
After leaving the Royal New Zealand Navy she was sold to Peter White-Robinson and renamed Kahu. In 2011 she underwent a year long refit at Fitzroy Yachts in New Plymouth, converting her to a ‘family ship’. In 2013 she was sold.[3]

In 2021 the vessel was involved in a £160,000,000 drugs bust when she was intercepted by HMC Searcher 130 km off the coast of Plymouth.[4] 1 British Citizen and 5 Nicaraguan citizens were arrested. 2000kgs of Cocaine was reported to be onboard.