Sunken Manawanui will not be replaced, Collins says

Wednesday, 22 January 2025

Fuel removed from stricken Manawanui

The navy’s sunken Manawanui will not be replaced, Defence Minister Judith Collins says, as dive and survey work is not Defence’s “main job”.

“Manawanui was a useful ship, but it’s not a warship … I’d rather have that money go into the fact that we have a large maritime area, and we have to be significantly more, say, able to deal with that and what might be happening in the future,” Collins told The Post.

Collins will before the end of March reveal the Government’s long-awaited Defence Capability Plan, which will outline billions of dollars of defence spending for the coming decades. Major decisions need to be made about navy assets in particular, with much of the fleet reaching end-of-life in a decade.

The October 6, 2024, loss of the Manawanui, a $103 million dive and survey vessel acquired by defence in 2019, was among late-arising issues in the development of the plan, which Collins said was being considered by Cabinet.

In this photo provided by the New Zealand Defence Force, divers survey the area around HMNZS Manawanui on the southern coast of Samoa, after the Manawanui ran aground and sank on October 6.

Collins said she would not spend $120m or $200m on a new survey ship when that was not a “key task” for Defence, and given dive and survey needs could be met by the offshore patrol vessel HMNZS Otago and a new Niwa vessel, Kaharoa II.

“We already have capability. There's no need for [the] Defence Force to be all things to all people.”

More than three months into the Manawanui recovery effort, Collins said there was a need to “get on with what Defence’s job really is”.

“But I’m very, very aware that Defence has to work at making sure that they sort out the issues from this terrible event.”

Collins would not put a dollar figure on the recovery, and said conversations with insurers to cover some of the cost were ongoing. Defence had the equivalent of third-party insurance, she said.

Navy divers prepare to set out and recover items from the Manawanui off the southern coast of Samoa.

Also unresolved was a question of whether the Manawanui would remain on the sea floor which would depend on discussions with the Samoan Government. However, Collins suggested it was likely to remain in place.

“The reality of actually taking it off the sea bed, where it's been sitting there now for quite some time, may be almost impossible, and could possibly bring other issues to bear that are even more dangerous. But it might become part of a reef. Who knows?”

Nor was it known how long the recovery effort might take.

Navy deputy chief Commodore Andrew Brown, running the recovery in Samoa, said in an interview the first “cycle” of fuel removal from the Manawanui by salvors had been completed.

Brown said he would “steer away” from giving a figure for how much fuel had been taken from the Manawanui’s tanks, as it was unknown how much was diesel, and how much could be seawater that had entered the tanks. Multiple tests were being conducted.

Four-week cycles of draining fuel, then depositing the tanktainers at Apia’s port, could be required. How long thatwould take would also be dependent on the weather.

After removing the fuel, further salvage of personal items and sensitive equipment including weapons would be needed, he said.