MANAWA HOOEY

hooey (noun, informal): something that is not true or does not make sense, although some people may believe it

In 2021, a man named Satish Ghule, relying solely on Google maps for directions to an intended trekking destination in India, drove his car straight into a river and drowned.

On 5 October 2024, Commander Yvonne Gray, captain of New Zealand Navy ship HMNZS Manawanui, called it a day after surveying the seabed adjacent to a Samoan reef.

Manawanui’s autopilot was engaged to steer the vessel back to the intended anchorage for the night. Taking the direct route to anchor, the autopilot crashed the Manawanui into the reef. None of the crew, including Commander Gray, realised that their desperate inability to change direction was solely due to the ship being on the very autopilot that they had engaged and not turned off.

The crew abandoned ship, and on 6 October, holed and in flames, the $150m Manawanui sank.

Chief of Navy Garin Golding convened a Court of Inquiry into the sinking, with Commodore Melissa Ross as president of the Inquiry. The Inquiry issued its Report late on Friday, 4 April 2025. It’s almost as if those involved don’t want the Report to be read.

Anyone who does read the Report and associated Navy communications will get a sinking feeling - a distinct impression that the Inquiry and Report are skewed more towards praising the Manawanui’s crew – for not drowning, helping with the Inquiry and providing valuable “learnings” for the future - than criticising them. In issuing the Report, Commodore Ross stated:

It was a difficult and stressful experience for some and I want to acknowledge your courage, commitment, comradeship and integrity.

We would not have been able to complete the report without your evidence, and the lessons and recommendations could not have been developed without your input to ensure an incident like this is not repeated.

The Report itself states, under a heading Courage in the face of adversity:

The damage control, abandonment and rescue phases of the incident saw many personnel on board the Ship show courage, bravery and leadership…there were many areas where leadership, professionalism and teamwork were present and the ship’s company of HMNZS MANAWANUI should be proud of their efforts to ensure everyone got to shore safely

Before the Report was issued, Navy Chief Garin had pre-emptively concluded that Captain Gray had “made the right call” to abandon ship, with Defence Minister Judith Collins chiming in with “It was something of a triumph, frankly.”

The Report doesn’t attribute blame to particular crew members. It does, however, find that “The direct cause of the grounding has been determined as a series of human errors...”.

The publicly released version of the Report is significantly redacted i.e., has substantial amounts of content blacked out. The redactions are partly to keep the identities of those involved secret. But it’s readily apparent that “Witness 1” in the Report is Commander Yvonne Gray herself.

The Report contains a revealing chronology of events and transcript of discussions on the Manawanui’s bridge. Gray arrived on the Manawanui’s bridge at 6.17pm, just before the Manawanui struck the reef for the first time and well after it had become apparent to other crew members that the autopiloted ship was out of control and careening towards the reef.

Immediately after Gray’s arrival, in response to Gray asking, “what speed have we got”, Witness 2 replies “10 kts increasing and I’ve got fucking full astern here and nothing is happening”. The Manawanui crashed along the reef and quickly stranded.

10 minutes after the stranding, the Report records:

18:27:43 Conversation heard regarding propulsion control re-established…“it was in auto and I didn’t realise Ma’am…

Gray’s call to abandon ship came at 6.47pm, at which point she became obsessed that the crew must urinate and defecate before getting in the liferafts, announcing “personnel are to get bottles of water, go to the toilet if they can…” Gray was apparently as concerned about evacuation of bladders and bowels as evacuating the Manawanui.

At 6.48pm, Gray announced:

““…this is the Captain. This isn’t a great situation, however I have faith that you all know what you need to do. We’ll get to our liferaft stations, we’ll get in our liferafts and we‘ll survive this and then we’ll wait for help to arrive. Make sure that you can do what you can to prepare yourself for getting in that liferaft if that means getting extra clothes then do that. All personnel are to try to get to the loo before they get in the liferaft.”

Gray’s Get-to-the-Loo My Darlings reminds me of those inane health and safety briefings that now taint most New Zealand gatherings of homo sapiens.

Repercussions from the reef concussion?

Despite the Report finding that a series of human errors directly caused of The Wreck of The Yvonne Manawanui, I can’t find anything definitive to suggest that anyone will face formal disciplinary proceedings.

With other crew panicking as the boat made its autopiloted beeline to oblivion, I’m left wondering why Captain Gray was not physically present on the boat’s bridge until seconds before the Manawanui crashed into the reef. And wondering whether it was Gray who ordered the Manawanui to be put on automatic pilot. And, if so, why?

But I feel terribly sorry for Gray and the rest of her crew, not least the poor crew member who, 10 minutes after the Manawanui had reached the site of its salty grave, poignantly told Gray …“it was in auto and I didn’t realise Ma’am”.

Allegations have swirled that Gray was appointed for reasons other than her level of competence to captain the Manawanui – essentially that she was appointed mainly because she’s a lesbian from Yorkshire. I’m singularly unqualified to assess such allegations, or the extent to which Gray may have personally contributed to the Manawanui’s demise.

The troubling trouble that the Navy faces in countering allegations of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion bias in Yvonne Gray’s appointment is that it has deliberately exposed itself to just such allegations. The Navy’s official announcement of Gray’s captaincy included the following:

In 2012, Commander Gray and her wife Sharon moved to New Zealand after falling in love with the country during a campervan holiday.

“The most obvious thing to do was join the Royal New Zealand Navy,” she said.

Her campervan passion is still going strong, but the call of the sea is always there too. Commander Gray returned to the RNZN earlier this year after heading off in late 2019 on a 57,000-kilometre road trip around Australia with Sharon and their dog Dennis.

Significant content of the sinking Report reads more like bravery awards than the results of an investigation into why the ship sank. And the New Zealand Defence Force is itself no stranger to awards. In 2018, DIVERSITY WORKS NZ gave the Defence Force its Supreme Diversity Award, for the Force’s diversity training.

On International Women’s Day in 2023, the Defence Force celebrated that four of its Naval Captains are biologically female, with then Chief of Navy, Rear Admiral David Proctor (not a proctologist), publicly announcing:

But we also need to walk the walk and demonstrate that women have just as much opportunity to succeed as men. Having wāhine as commanding officers on more than 60 per cent of our ships, as well as heading up shore units and other important portfolios, is a realisation of that goal.”

In many spheres of life, diversity of thought and outlooks is a good and beneficial thing. And our Human Rights Act rightly prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation (heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual) and who someone is married to, or in a civil union or de facto relationship with. But when it comes to captaining a naval vessel, it must necessarily be all about merit – sheer ability to command and otherwise keep the boat afloat.

If it emerges that Captain Gray was appointed other than strictly on merit, it shouldn’t be Gray who is Court marshalled. It should surely be whoever appointed her.