HMNZS Manawai

A reader observes:

The ship lies in 30m of water just off the reef and not far from where the sea floor plunges 300m+ one nautical mile offshore from Upolo’s north coast near the cross-island highway and opposite the five star Sinalei Reef Resort. The coastline there is incredibly beautiful and pristine.

IMHO the ship is not salvageable. Instead the focus has to be on removing the 950 tonnes of diesel on board and mitigating any environmental impact. That in itself will be a hazardous undertaking working so close to the reef.

There has been a lot of commentary from armchair admirals with much to say based on very little knowledge with a fair bit of misoginism thrown in for good measure. Particular (disparaging) comment has been made about the Captain’s sexuality. By all accounts she is an extremely capable ex RN officer who managed to evacuate the ship in dark, in a heightened sea state, without loss of life. Both the Minister and the Chief of Navy have commended her for that. Having said that it is fair to point out that under the previous Chief of Navy there was a push to give female officers seagoing command experience … last year four out of our seven operational ships were commanded by females. Early this year one of those (Captain HMNZS Canterbury) was relieved of command after her superiors reportedly lost confidence in her. Perhaps its time to pause and reflect.

Manawanui was a state of the art ship albeit in a 20 YO hull. It had been extensively refurbished and had just come out of a period of maintenance. The reports (if correct) that it suffered a catastrophic loss of power are concerning. The Navy are in the processing of establishing a high level Court of Inquiry into the sinking. I, for one, have confidence in the process. I have no doubt they will leave no stone unturned in establishing what actually happened and what (and who) was responsible with any repercussions to follow.

For now the government has a duty of care to throw everything at mitigating the effect of the disaster no matter the cost. Our ‘special relationship’ (so called) with Samoa is at risk. Samoans recall the tragedy of the SS Tahuna when, in 1918, the NZL Military Administration allowed the ship to dock in Apia with passengers sick with the Spanish Flu (the ‘black death’) …. the resulting epidemic saw 22% of the population wiped out; nor ‘Black Saturday’ (28 December 1928) where NZL Military policemen machine-gunned a peaceful demonstration by the Mau seeking self government causing 11 deaths; nor Muldoon’s dawn raids of 1976-79; nor the measles epidemic of 2019 imported from NZL. Our special relationship is fragile indeed … we cannot allow this tragedy to de-rail it.

Updated … I’m told from a reliable source that the ship left Devonport with the back up generator non operational. Manawanui had two main engines run off one switch board. When the switch board failed (caught fire) both main engines were knocked out and with the back up generator u/s it was all over rover. If that is correct then heads will surely roll.