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Lt. Cmdr. Kimberley Healy, Principle Warfare Officer from Sea Combat Command alongside New Zealand Navy Lt. Cmdr. Elton Drylie aboard the Polar-class logistics support ship HMNZS Aotearoa during Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2024, at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii.

HONOLULU, HAWAII, UNITED STATES

07.02.2024 – Photo by Adam Abela Commander, U.S. 3rd Flee

Twenty-nine nations, 40 surface ships, three submarines, 14 national land forces, more than 150 aircraft, and 25,000 personnel are participating in RIMPAC in and around the Hawaiian Islands, June 27 to Aug. 1. The world’s largest international maritime exercise, RIMPAC provides a unique training opportunity while fostering and sustaining cooperative relationships among participants critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security on the world’s oceans. RIMPAC 2024 is the 29th exercise in the series that began in 1971. (Australian Defence Force photo by Royal Australian Air Force Imagery Specialist Cpl. Adam Abela)

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 seamanshipOfficer 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.