.gif)
HMNZS Manawanui (A09)
Encyclopedia
HMNZS Manawanui (A09) was commissioned in 1988 as a diving support vessel for the Royal New Zealand Navy
Royal New Zealand Navy
The Royal New Zealand Navy is the maritime arm of the New Zealand Defence Force...
. Originally she was built as a diving support vessel, the Star Perseus, for North Sea oil rig operations.
Manawanui is the third
HMNZS Manawanui
HMNZS Manawanui can refer to* HMNZS Manawanui - the first diving tender of the New Zealand navy from 1953 to 1978* HMNZS Kahu - the second diving tender, called HMNZS Manawanui from 1978 to 1988...
ship with this name to serve in the New Zealand Navy. Manawanui is also a Māori
Maori language
Māori or te reo Māori , commonly te reo , is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Māori. It has the status of an official language in New Zealand...
word meaning "to be brave or steadfast".
Manawanui has a capability to hold station over a fixed position. She has a triple lock recompression chamber, a crane with 13 tonne lifting capacity, wet diving bell
Diving bell
A diving bell is a rigid chamber used to transport divers to depth in the ocean. The most common types are the wet bell and the closed bell....
and a small engineering workshop. She also has limited deck cargo carrying capacity.
The divers of the New Zealand Navy who work onboard Manawanui are trained for deep diving with mixed gases, underwater demolition
Underwater demolition
Underwater demolition refers to the deliberate destruction or neutralization of man-made or natural underwater obstacles, both for military and civilian purposes.-John G. Foster:...
and unexploded ordnance
Unexploded ordnance
Unexploded ordnance are explosive weapons that did not explode when they were employed and still pose a risk of detonation, potentially many decades after they were used or discarded.While "UXO" is widely and informally used, munitions and explosives of...
disposal
Bomb disposal
Bomb disposal is the process by which hazardous explosive devices are rendered safe. Bomb disposal is an all encompassing term to describe the separate, but interrelated functions in the following fields:*Military:...
.
An ROV operated from the Manawanui returned photos of the wreck of the MV Princess Ashika
MV Princess Ashika
The MV Princess Ashika was an inter-island ferry which operated in the South Pacific kingdom of Tonga. This motorized vessel was built in 1972, and began sailing the Tongan route on 7 July 2009 only to sink less than a month later on 5 August. Official figures released by Operation Ashika on...
, which sunk near Ha'apai
Ha'apai
Haapai is a group of islands, islets, reefs and shoals in the central part of the Kingdom of Tonga, with the Tongatapu group to the south and the Vavau group to the north. Seventeen of the Haapai islands are populated....
, Tonga
Tonga
Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...
on 5 August 2009.