Navy Divers and OIC of Police Diving Team planning their task.
7 November, 2007
The Navy Diving Tender HMNZS MANAWANUI, with the Navy Operational Diving Team onboard, have successfully completed checks that all the charges on the former Navy frigate Canterbury had detonated.
The frigate Canterbury was sunk at Deep Water Cove, near Cape Brett in the Bay of Islands on Saturday .
A series of dives using detached divers on twin compressed air cylinders, as well as using the ship’s surface supplied breathing apparatus (SSBA) were required to re-buoy the wreck and delineate how it was lying, as originally only one buoy was showing.
For the SSBA dives, the ship was moored close into the wreck as gale force winds from the southeast made laying the three anchors challenging due to the close proximity of the navigational hazards nearby. At the end of the SSBA dive, the Navy Divers entered the ship’s recompression chamber for a period of 37 minutes to recompress due to the depth and duration of their dive.
The Commanding Officer of HMNZS MANAWANUI, Lieutenant Commander Mark Longstaff said, “Working in adverse weather conditions, the Navy Divers and MANAWANUI’s deck and navigational team, worked extremely well and were keen to get on with the job. The result was very pleasing and we were able to identify that indeed, all charges had detonated correctly”.
HMNZS MANAWANUI will return to the wreck site for the day today to tidy up the buoys and then return to the original focus of this week - diver training in the Bay of Islands areas. MANAWANUI will return home to the Naval Base on Friday 9 November.
The Navy Diving team were responding to a request for assistance from the Police Diving Team.
ENDS
For further information and requests for interviews, please contact Lieutenant Commander Barbara Cassin, Navy Public Relations Manager, on (09) 4455002 or 021-2440638.