The Sinking of HMNZS Manawanui
by David Archibald
11 October 2024
A Royal New Zealand Navy survey vessel, the HMNZS Manawanui, a specialist dive and hydrographic vessel worth $100m and one of only five crewed ships in the New Zealand Navy, ran up on the reef on the southern side of the Samoan island of Upolu at 6.46 pm on 5th October.
It has been said that efforts were made to get the vessel off the reef. At 7.52 pm it began to list and the captain gave the order to abandon ship. It sank the following morning in 30 metres of water. The ship was said to be conducting a hydrographic survey at the time it ran aground.
On fire as she sank
The official story doesn’t make sense. Hydrographic work in shallow waters uses smaller boats launched from the mother ship. And they wouldn’t being doing that at night. Sunset in Samoa at the moment is at 6.24 pm and the grounding was 22 minutes later. Evening mess in the Royal New Zealand Navy starts at 6.00 pm. My take is that running aground is the first thing that the Manawanui did on arriving in Samoan waters from New Zealand. It is likely that it was still on autopilot from leaving New Zealand.
In 2018, the Royal Norwegian Navy lost a US$1.4 billion frigate by collision with an oil tanker at 4.00 am in the morning due to lack of attention on the bridge. This was soon after the US Navy had two major warship collisions with cargo ships at night. The Manawanui sinking would also have been due to a lack of interest on the bridge. It reflects poorly on the captain, but also on all those on the bridge at the time.
The Manawanui wasn’t built for speed. It had a maximum speed of 15.5 knots at which it consumed 30 tonnes of fuel per day. Dropping the speed to 13 knots more than halved the fuel consumption to 14 tonnes per day. This likely explains why the transit from New Zealand was performed at 5.1 knots.
The ship’s black box has been recovered and a court of inquiry has been appointed. It will be a closed inquiry. But 75 souls were witness to what happened and so some stories should come out soon. I suggest an interim solution. The Royal New Zealand Navy should never aim directly for the island to be visited. Set the autopilot to pass by the port or starboard – they can always double back if necessary.
David Archibald is the author of The Anticancer Garden in Australia.