New Zealand Plans to Pay Samoa $3.6 Million for Sinking of HMNZS Manawanui
On the one-year anniversary of the sinking of the HMNZS Manawanui, the government of New Zealand has agreed to pay Samoa a total of $3.6 million in compensation for the contamination and disruption from the loss of the vessel.
"We have always said we will do the right thing," New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said in a statement Sunday. "We recognize the impact the sinking has had on local communities and acknowledge the disruption it caused."
HMZNS Manawanui was a 2003-built offshore support, dive and survey vessel, originally built for Østensjø Rederi and named the Edda Fonn. She was sold to the Royal New Zealand Navy in 2018 and refitted for military missions. On October 5, 2024, the ship was operating about one nautical mile off Opolu in rough and windy conditions. At about 1815 hours, the crew made a normal turn to starboard, but the ship did not respond to their rudder commands because it was still in autopilot. It then accelerated towards the reef and grounded at 10 knots, continuing onwards for 400 yards before stranding. 75 personnel abandoned ship at about 2200 hours, and all were rescued. Only 14 were injured, including several who had cuts from walking across the coral to safety. The generators were left running to aid the evacuation, but the next morning they caught fire catastrophically, resulting in the ship's capsizing and sinking.
A court of inquiry found that training issues and the qualifications of the ship’s personnel were to blame for the grounding, with contributing issues in operational planning, instructions and procedures, supervision, haste, leadership, distraction, and interruptions. New Zealand's navy has pledged to revise its procedures to reduce the risk of recurrence.
The ship went down with about one million liters of distillate on board, and an unknown amount of fuel leaked from the tanks. The comparatively remote location of the wreck site delayed the start of pollution abatement operations, but a barge arrived on site in December 2024 and pumping out was substantially completed in February. Local fishermen were banned from the area for five months over contamination concerns, resulting in loss of income.
There are no plans to attempt to raise the ship from the bottom, and some local stakeholders have objected to the wreck's continued presence. Some village elders told RNZ recently that the fishing on the reef has been very poor since the sinking compared to historic levels of abundance, and others have complained of a continuing odor of diesel on the water.
However, sampling has produced no signs of serious widespread pollution, and the Scientific Research Organization of Samoa has concluded that the seawater near the site is uncontaminated. The New Zealand Navy says that it is moving ahead with an independent assessment of the wreck site post-remediation, and that it remains a priority to minimize environmental impact.
HMNZS Manawanui will not be replaced, and her missions will be picked up by the patrol boat HMNZS Otago - a much smaller vessel lacking Manawanui's working deck and 100-tonne crane.