Top Stories
ANZAC effort bails out yacht
By Graham Davis

Volume 50, No.5, April 05, 2007
 
GOOD WORK: HMNZS Te Mana is assisted by an Adsteam tug in the Brisbane River at the start of a port visit to the city. The ship teamed up with HMAS Newcastle to come to the aid of a yacht in distress.
 
Ships of the Australian and New Zealand navies along with a RNZAF Orion, civilian water police and civilian search aircraft have combined to aid a yacht taking water in Bass Strait.

The ships were the 3400 tonne Anzac Class HMNZS Te Mana and the 4100 tonne HMAS Newcastle, then on combined exercise off the east coast of Australia.

“We were down in the Bass Strait oil fields in early March when we received a distress call from a yacht saying it was taking water,” LEUT Colin Marshall, RN, the public relations officer in Te Mana, told Navy News.

“We took the call on the GMDSS (Global Maritime Distress Safety System). “At the time we were 120 miles away from the yacht.

“We passed the details on to HMAS Newcastle and because she was better placed she went to the yacht’s assistance.”

Defence Media said the incident involved the yacht Medina with three people on board and occurred on March 8.

Newcastle transferred an engineering team to the yacht to assist her crew to pump out water and repair damage to the hull.

Once the situation on board was stable, Newcastle handed responsibility of the yacht to a police launch and returned to operations.

A New Zealand Airforce maritime patrol aircraft and a civilian search and rescue aircraft were also involved in the incident, Defence Media said. LEUT Marshall said the yacht made port safely.

LEUT Marshall, on exchange from the Royal Navy, told of the rescue when Te Mana arrived in Brisbane on March 27 for a port visit. The ship’s company of 183, led by CMDR Wilson Trumper, spent four days in Brisbane before continuing a deployment which began in February and will not see the ship return to the Devonport Naval Base in Auckland until late July.

So far Te Mana has exercised with sister ship HMNZS Te Kaha and units of the RAN in the Tasman Sea. After leaving Brisbane Te Mana will head north to link up with fleet oiler HMNZS Endeavour to form Operation Cutlas.

The paired warships will proceed to Singapore and engage in exercises with defence assets from Singapore, Malaysia, the UK and Australia.

Te Mana is one of ten Anzac Class frigates built at Williamstown by Tenix. New Zealand has two, the RAN the remaining eight.