New Zealand ship sinks with ex-Royal Navy commander at the helm

Commander Yvonne Gray, the British-born master of MNZS Manawanui, is praised for saving lives by ordering the 75 crew and passengers to abandon ship off Samoa

HMNZS Manawanui lists to starboard and smoke belches from below decks as the sea pounds the reef off Upolu, Samoa

New Zealand’s navy has lost its first ship in peacetime after a 5,740-tonne dive and hydrographic vessel under the command of a former Royal Navy officer struck a reef off Samoa.

HMNZS Manawanui sank yesterday (Sunday) morning after running aground and catching fire near the island of Upolu, Samoa, on Saturday. Seventy-five crew and passengers were rescued by Samoa’s fire and emergency services.

The Royal New Zealand Navy ship the HMNZS Manawanui. Picture: New Zealand Defence Force/AFP

The cause of the accident will be investigated by a court of inquiry, but the decision of Commander Yvonne Gray to abandon ship was credited by Rear-Admiral Garin Golding, the chief of the Royal New Zealand Navy, as a move that saved lives.

“She made the decision and it was the right decision,” he said. The sinking was the first time the navy had lost a ship during peacetime, he added.

A RHIB and one of Manawanui 's liferafts. Picture: Samoa Fire and Emergency Services Authority

Gray, from Harrogate, North Yorkshire, moved to New Zealand in 2012 and joined its navy. She took command of the Manawanui in December 2022. It was her first command in a career that began in 1993 as a warfare officer.

The specialist vessel grounded about a mile offshore while surveying a reef. Neither Golding nor Judith Collins, the defence minister, would speculate on the cause of the sinking.

The HMNZS Manawanui grounded near the coast of Upolu. Picture: Samoa Fire and Emergency Services Authority / Facebook

David Poole, who took a series of photos showing the last moments of the Manawanui, said that the ship sank at 8.45am. “When we got there, it wasn’t on fire. We watched the fire take hold and the whole infrastructure was burning pretty brightly. You could see it was listed over, and then it just went down and [was] gone,” he said.

“The villagers around us are visibly upset. They were in church and came out and watched it go down. They told us in their living history they had not seen a shipwreck off their coast.”

The ship is down by the stern. Islanders watched the drama unfold from ashore

The photos showed the fire aboard the 85m-long ship, which was listing badly in choppy seas.

The Samoa Fire and Emergency Services Authority said it had no equipment to fight a blaze at sea. “If you’re unsure about our sea areas, please be careful, take caution and stay safe,” the authority posted on social media.

The last minutes of HMNZS Manawanui. The commander has been praised for a “life-saving” decision.

Radio New Zealand reported that the cost of replacing the ship would be NZdollars 130 million (pounds 61 million). Manawanui was built as the Edda Fonn in 2003 and operated by a Norwegian company as an oil and gas survey vessel before being acquired by New Zealand in 2018.

The Times