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Ex- Minister of Defence, Ron Mark:
"[Labour Party] ministerial team purchased the vessel [in 2018] from Norway, used for oil exploration, and refitted it, getting it into service in 11 months .. It astonished our partners, the audacity that we would buy a commercial vessel of that type & press it into military service .. We bought Manawanui knowing she was not a war ship, she's a commercial operation... but with that comes a risk and the risk is that commercial vessels do not have the same level of redundancy in their systems or their design that warships do - you can't seal off compartments, create water tight compartments & keep the vessel afloat so that it can be towed, salvaged & repaired .. I guess no one anticipated that she'd hit a reef."
Professor Robert MacCulloch: PM Ardern and the Manawanui sinking
Is the Truth Out - that PM Ardern's government made a (Defense Force Underfunding) decision that led to Manawanui's Sinking & Billion $ Environmental Fiasco?
Who was the official "sponsor" of the now sunken NZ Naval ship Manawanui? None other than former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. And now it seems we may already know what led to the total loss of the Manawanui and destruction of the way of life of large numbers of Samoan villagers. In an interview that may turn out to be a big mistake - and will be making his former political colleagues & Defense Force Staff nervous beyond belief - since it may open up huge legal claims on New Zealand from the Samoan government - former Ardern Labour Government Defense Minister Ron Mark has just revealed that his:
"[Labour Party] ministerial team purchased the vessel [in 2018] from Norway, used for oil exploration, and refitted it, getting it into service in 11 months .. It astonished our partners, the audacity that we would buy a commercial vessel of that type & press it into military service .. We bought Manawanui knowing she was not a war ship, she's a commercial operation... but with that comes a risk and the risk is that commercial vessels do not have the same level of redundancy in their systems or their design that warships do - you can't seal off compartments, create water tight compartments & keep the vessel afloat so that it can be towed, salvaged & repaired .. I guess no one anticipated that she'd hit a reef."
So there you go. I admire Ron Mark's refreshing honesty. It didn't take long for the truth to emerge. The ship was bought on the cheap - it was never meant to do reef research - quite the contrary, it was built for deep (North) Sea oil exploration. After the NZ Navy bought it, they painted it Battleship Grey to make it look like a Naval ship, even though it wasn't a Naval ship, and not built to that specification. A refit was done, again on the cheap. From what Ron Mark suggests, that refit did not "create water tight compartments" which are standard features of naval vessels, designed to prevent the total sinking that has occurred. As such, it appears the ship was never fit for its new assigned tasks.
All in all, its looking like former PM Ardern was happy to spend $15 billion on wage subsidy style schemes, handing Fletcher Building over $68 million in terms of that subsidy, which it never repaid, being nearly the entire cost of the Manawanui, but she was not prepared to make the Manawanui fully sea-worthy for the reef work tasks that it was charged with doing. The consequence has been endangering 75 sailors lives & the environmental desecration of Samoa. I suppose she wont be talking about that decision at one of her Harvard seminars.
Sources:
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/it-s-my-ship-and-i-m-gutted-former-minister-ron-mark-on-manawanui-sinking/ar-AA1rN33y
Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics. He runs the blog Down to Earth Kiwi from where this article was sourced.
On the cheap?
NZ was a laughing stock when the Ardern Govt paid a whopping 5x the book value for what would become the Manawanui.
Even the ship brokers at the time couldn’t believe the vendors luck.
We paid $103NZD then millions to have it fitted out.
HMNZS MANAWANUI
Details are already starting to emerge of the frantic rescue efforts that saved the crew of the stricken vessel on Saturday evening and which continued until the early hours of Sunday.
OCT 08, 2024
The country is still reeling from the sudden and shocking loss of HMNZS Manawanui on Sunday morning but details are already emerging of events before and after the vessel hit a reef on the southwest coast of Upolu Island, Samoa.
There were strong weather conditions at the time of the grounding and there remains marine warnings in effect due to a strong southeast wind flow which continues to prevail over Samoa’s marine waters. Southeasterly and easterly winds of up to 40 kph together with poor visibility were being reported at the time. Waves and swells in the area were also reported of 2.5 to 4 metres.
“Rescuers battled currents and winds that were pushing the life rafts and sea boats toward the reefs, while swells made the rescue effort particularly challenging,” the NZDF stated.
Samoan media has reported that local fishermen were not at sea in the area that night due to the adverse weather conditions.
The Acting Prime Minister of Samoa Tuala Iosefo Ponifasio told reporters on Sunday that authorities on the island received a distress call at 6:58 pm from the Rescue Coordination Centre in Wellington regarding a vessel that had run aground.
Sunset that evening in Samoa was 6:23 pm and it was a Spring high tide at 7:41 pm.
The Samoa Observer has reported that the crew had just finished cleaning up the ship and were getting ready for dinner when it struck the reef.
The article speculates, “It is possible that the fire started from the kitchen but that will be ascertained by the investigation.” Whether the fire started on Saturday evening or the next morning is anyone’s guess at this stage.
Speaking to TVNZ’s Breakfast on Monday morning, Defence Minister Judith Collins suggested a power outage may have caused the ship to run aground.
“We need to find out what happened, apparently it lost power, I’m aware of that, and ended up aground on the reef,” she said.
Writing about the incident in the UK’s Telegraph earlier today, Commander Tom Sharpe, a former British Royal Navy Captain, observed that photos of the Manawanui before she sank show that she had Restricted in Ability to Manoeuvre (RAM) shapes hoisted - a signal to other ships that “due to the nature of her work, [the Manawanui] is restricted in her ability to deviate from her course”. Vessels use this signal in a variety of situations, including when dredging, surveying or undertaking underwater operations.
Commander Sharpe’s view is that the Manawanui was probably operating in navigationally tight waters, likely surveying an area whose charting information was dated, when mechanical failure or loss of power occurred.
Acting Prime Minister Ponifasio confirmed that a second call was received from Rescue Coordination at 7:19 pm which notified the Samoan authorities that the decision had been made by the Commanding Officer that the vessel’s crew would have to abandon ship due to taking on too much water, prompting the immediate deployment of rescue boats.
The NZDF has reported that the crew began evacuating at 7:52 pm into four life boats and two rigid hull inflatable boats. Commander Sharpe observed that most evacuation systems work in certain sea states but when considering that this evacuation was done at dark, in terrible weather and into rubber lifeboats with no engines, surrounded by the reefs that they had just struck, the crew did well not to have any major injuries or fatalities.
The Samoa Observer has reported that it took the first survivors five hours to get to shore because of the strong currents and high waves and that one of the small boats “flipped on the reef” during the rescue attempt.
Reports in the local press record that the first crew member was rescued at 1 am with the last recovered at 5:30 am local time.
There will undoubtedly be many stories of the rescues that occurred that evening. The crew struggled for hours to get the lifeboats away from the reefs.
One eyewitness to the unfolding drama told me yesterday that a young naval crew member stripped down and went into the water from a lifeboat and swam a distance in 4 metre seas to an outrigger that had been taken out by some of the locals. Taking the outrigger back to the lifeboat they managed to pull the lifeboat through a gap in the reef but only after several hours of battling the seas.
On Sunday afternoon locals managed to pull to shore a life boat used during the rescue operation that had been abandoned on the reef.
One of two dispatched boats on the Manawanui was also still sitting out at sea and locals were told that a New Zealand team would be clearing it up.
The story emerging is one of the human side of survival in treacherous conditions, Kiwi guts and amazing efforts made by Samoan marine, fire and police as well as locals.
And why was the Manawanui charting a reef to the west of Si’umu which locals regard as one of Samoa’s best surf spots? The ship went down 1.5 nautical miles from the Sinelai Reef Resort & Spa - generally considered the best resort in Samoa.
The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting will be held in Apia from 21 October and the local press have already confirmed that King Charles III will be staying at the Sinelai when he arrives on 25 October to participate in CHOGM.
In an interview with the Samoa Observer in June, the owner of the Sinalei Resort, Tuatagaloa Joe Annandale confirmed that they will host the British Monarch and that “security checks are continuing”.
“What is confirmed is that the British delegation will be hosted here and for the arrival of His Majesty, the security inspections are still ongoing,” he said.
“There is official confirmation that the King will be coming to the meeting which was questioned due to his medical condition but he has now confirmed that he is coming.”
Annandale confirmed that the resort would be closed for at least one week before the arrival of the British Monarch.
Security checks will undoubtedly include the coastal waters in front of the Sinelai including scanning the reef for gaps, bommies, access points for evacuation plans and possible threats.
An eyewitness has recounted to me that one of the rigid hull inflatables from the Manawanui had in fact come ashore at the Sinelai Resort late Saturday afternoon before returning to its parent vessel shortly before the incident occurred.
On Monday evening, the HMS Tamar, a 90 metre British Royal Navy patrol vessel could be seen from the Sinelai. The Tamar had arrived in Suva last Wednesday evening, spending two days in port before departing for Samoa on Friday.
The Samoa Observer has reported, “The security operation includes a multi-national policing effort. Samoa Police will be joined by Australia, New Zealand and Fiji counterparts. Each top delegate would also bring their security entourage as well.”
“The Australian Navy will also bring in a naval ship to patrol the borders while there is an expectation that the United States might also do the same.”
It is therefore, highly possible, that HMNZS Manawanui was performing duties connected with CHOGM and the imminent arrival of King Charles at the Sinelai Resort. That point may never be officially confirmed but there are undoubtedly many stories of bravery that will be told in the coming weeks and months regarding the Manawanui and the rescue of her crew.
Notice the reporter’s s main question was “how did people FEEL”
At last some coherent reporting on the loss of HMNZS Manawanui.
News that the Navy refuses to release.
A crew member from one of the rescue ships reports that the ship was observed upright on the reef at 10 pm local time Saturday.
He also says the crew had already abandoned the ship and were in six boats (4 life rafts and 2 ribs) that had drifted some distance to the west.
At that time, he did not observe any smoke coming from the ship, but did see smoke at sunrise the next day. (but no flames)
At this stage the ship had only a slight list. The observer also reports that the area is relatively free of debris and has only a slight diesel slick near the wreck.
So at this stage it is not the environmental disaster some parties have been predicting.
This information comes courtesy of Radio New Zealand’s Morning Report.
The takeaways are-
1) the ship was still upright and was fully lit at the time it was abandoned.
2) There was no fire apparent until early morning of the next day.
3) The ship was not noticed listing until sunrise and then only slightly.
4) There is no environmental disaster so far.
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