May 2012, Issue 166 - Royal New Zealand Navy

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RESOLUTION DECOMMISSIONING By SLT DAVE JAQUIERY HMNZS RESOLUTION Sunday 27 April 2012 sees the end of an era for the Royal New Zealand Navy. The day marks the decommissioning ceremony for HMNZS RESOLUTION, 15 years and two months after she was commissioned into New Zealand service in Portland, Oregon. Her years of service have been characterised by the continuous hard, unsung work which is the stuff of any self-respecting hydrographic survey ship, the role which RESOLUTION was primarily brought into service for, and so named to tribute the rich historical ties that name has with hydrography in New Zealand. RESOLUTION was named after the second vessel under the command of Captain James Cook, RN, on which he visited, and surveyed, our shores during the 1770s. However it was not the first of that name in Royal Navy service. The name RESOLUTION was used by no fewer than 11 RN ships prior to ours during the course of almost 400 years, very much the days of when “ships were wood and men were steel.” Indeed, during CAPT Cook’s first trip here on RESOLUTION he was away from home for no less than two-and-a-half years! Not bad, considering the ship was cramped at 110 crew and only 33.7 metres from stem to stern. On RESOLUTION Cook boldly went where no man had been before, being the first ship recorded as having crossed the Antarctic Circle. It was on return from this achievement that RESOLUTION first visited New Zealand, sailing to the Fiordland coast in order to make repairs. Since he was there, Cook also charted Dusky Sound and conducted a survey of Pickersgill Harbour — and it’s even still on the chart, albeit mainly for historical interest. He also named an island in the area after RESOLUTION. Sadly, during the course of his third voyage, again on HMS RESOLUTION, CAPT Cook was killed. He was posthumously awarded a coat-ofarms. In fact, the wavy six-armed star on HMNZS RESOLUTION’s ship’s crest was copied from it in honour of the man with whom our ship’s history is so closely bound. Before entering service with the RNZN, our RESOLUTION was formerly the USNS TENACIOUS, a Stalwart class ocean surveillance ship. Her class was equipped with a Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) and was used during the Cold War for passive sonar operations. TENACIOUS served in that capacity for seven-and-a-half years before being stricken from the Naval Vessel Register and commissioned into our navy one week later on the sixth of February 1997. RESOLUTION was purchased to replace HMNZ Ships TUI and MONOWAI as the primary hydrographic survey ship with the secondary role of acoustic research. TUI’s towed array was embarked onto the SURTASS winch on the quarterdeck. The survey technology was much improved with multi-beam echo sounders replacing the single beam echo sounders of MONOWAI. The arrangement for hydrography in New Zealand had also changed around the time of RESOLUTION’s commissioning into the Navy. The model born out of the “funder-provider split” of the day placed responsibility for hydrography with Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) and the Navy entered into a Memorandum of Understanding arrangement with them. This resulted in the Navy being contracted to provide hydrographic services mostly in support of the Shipping Lanes project for which RESOLUTION has surveyed over 75,000 nautical miles. By current tallies, RESOLUTION has generated over $80 million of external revenue for the RNZN. Like any Navy ship, RESOLUTION has proved her versatility and conducted far more jobs than solely “mowing the lawn” – although the more than 1200 days she has spent on the survey ground certainly attest to her commitment to the task! During the last few years she has conducted Fisheries and Customs patrols, represented the RNZN around New Zealand and New Zealand around the Pacific during deployments to New Caledonia, Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Niue, and parts of the Cook Island chain. One notable event was her response to calls for assistance for a shark attack victim, which is narrated by the former CO at the time. 14 NT166april-may12 WWW.NAVY.MIL.NZ
“I commanded RES for a short period in mid- 2000. We were doing towed array operations in the Tonga Trench when we received a distress call. A man had been severely mauled by a shark while snorkelling in the Minerva Reef lagoon and needed serious medical attention. “The array was recovered and RES transited to Minerva –there was no way I would have taken the ship anywhere near the entrance, even in daylight, but the survey ops officer had survey data of the area around the reef emailed to us and we were able to use the MBES to run parallel swathes in the approaches to the entrance, so we were able to navigate in the approaches in perfect safety. “The RHIB was dispatched and RES conned the COXN by VHF around the coral heads and obstructions. The patient was picked up, and after a fairly tense time, recovered onboard and taken to Nuku’alofa. “I have very happy memories of a fine ship and a wonderful ship’s company. They were a terrific team, they put up with their PWO CO with good grace, and I thoroughly enjoyed serving with them all.” CAPT Andy Watts, RNZN (ret) HMNZS RESOLUTION was awarded a Maritime Commander NZ Commendation for the rescue on Minerva Reef. Other notable events in RESOLUTION’s history were being able to provide (due to location) Rapid Environment Assessment in the immediate aftermath of the devastating 22 February 2011 earthquake in Christchurch. RESOLUTION was 15 nautical miles off the coast when the earthquake hit and the feeling onboard was that the engines had been set in full astern with associated shuddering and shaking. It was only when a dust cloud over Christchurch was observed and chatter on VHF soon alerted the bridge team of the enormity of the disaster. With CAPT Dean McDougall (CTU 650.4.1) in an established headquarters on HMNZS CANTERBURY in Lyttelton, RESOLUTION reported for duty and was subsequently called in to conduct a hydrographic confidence survey of the main channel into the Port of Lyttelton. RESOLUTION entered the harbour limits at 1515 with her seaboat taking spot depths one to two cables ahead. A running check indicated that there was no noticeable difference to the charted depths. RES turned at rest at the entrance to the port and continued surveying back out of harbour. On exiting the harbour limits, the Maritime Survey Team commenced post processing the data. At 1900 a chart with updated soundings had been produced. This product was then delivered in hard copy and electronically to CTU 650.4.1, RESOLUTION was subsequently released to continue OP ACHERON tasking. The following week, RESOLUTION repeated this activity in Akaroa Harbour. In March, RESOLUTION was quick to the scene of the EASY RIDER tragedy in Foveaux Strait, in which eight of the nine people aboard the fishing boat died when it capsized in icy waters (See OP EASY RIDER). In recent weeks, RESOLUTION has called at ports around New Zealand – including Timaru and Wellington – for the last time. At the time of writing, RESOLUTION had steamed over 309,000 nautical miles since commissioning into the RNZN, equivalent to some 14 times around the Earth. By best investigation, some 800 officers and sailors have served on the ‘Mighty RES’. Reliable and economic to run, RESOLUTION has served the Royal New Zealand Navy well. There is a natural desire to outline her future. Unfortunately, that is hard to do in detail yet . However, the general plan is that she will be sold to a new owner and move on to a new phase of her life carrying out new work under a new name. WWW.NAVY.MIL.NZ NT166april-may12 15
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May 2012, Issue 166 - Royal New Zealand Navy

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