Ex-Royal Navy commander praised for saving lives after New Zealand ship catches fire and sinks

Commander Yvonne Gray from North Yorkshire was successful complaint of the £60m New Zealand Navy vas which sank connected Sunday. Abandoning vessel was the "right action"

A New Zealand naval vessel nether the bid of a erstwhile Royal Navy officer has sunk aft striking a reef.

The 5,740-tonne HMNZS Manawanui went down connected Sunday greeting disconnected Samoa. It is the archetypal clip New Zealand’s navy has mislaid a vessel successful peacetime. An enquiry volition beryllium launched to find retired wherefore the hydrographic vas nether Commander Yvonne Gray catastrophically ran aground and caught occurrence adjacent the land of Upolu connected Saturday.

All 75 unit and passengers were rescued. Two radical needed infirmary attraction for insignificant injuries, 1 with a dislocated enarthrosis and different with a wounded back, according to section reports. The determination of Commander Gray to wantonness vessel has been praised arsenic life-saving. “She made the determination and it was the close decision,” said Rear-Admiral Garin Golding, main of the Royal New Zealand Navy.

Gray, from Harrogate, North Yorkshire, moved to New Zealand successful 2012 and took bid of the Manawanui successful December 2022. She had antecedently served connected Royal Navy frigates and minehunters, reports The Times.

“This is simply a vessel that, unfortunately, is beauteous overmuch gone,” Judith Collins, the New Zealand defence minister, told a property conference. “This could person been a genuinely unspeakable day,” if determination had been nonaccomplishment of life, Collins said. “But really it is simply a atrocious day."

A powerfulness outage whitethorn person caused the vessel to tally aground, the defence curate suggested. According to a study connected 1 News, the defence curate said: “We request to find retired what happened, seemingly it mislaid power, I’m alert of that, and ended up aground connected the reef."

She said the Chief of Navy told her the Court of Inquiry had already begun its investigation. The results volition beryllium known successful a substance of weeks, oregon perchance months if it is much complex. The specializer vas grounded astir a mile offshore portion surveying a reef. The vessel was built successful 2003 and operated arsenic an lipid and state survey vas by a Norwegian steadfast earlier being acquired by New Zealand successful 2018.

“It’s not a battleship. It was ne'er built arsenic that. It was built for diving enactment and for surveying,” the defence curate said. The New Zealand Navy was “really hurting” aft the sinking, she added.

The 85m-long vessel vessel was engulfed successful occurrence and was severely successful choppy seas earlier going down. The vessel sank astatine 8.45am. Witnesses described seeing the occurrence instrumentality clasp and past burning brightly. Villagers were said to beryllium "visibly upset". Many were successful religion astatine the clip and said they had ne'er seen immoderate akin incidental successful their lifetimes.