New Zealand‘s navy has insisted that a female captain’s gender was not to blame for the sinking of a naval ship.
HMNZS Manawanui caught fire and later capsized after it ran aground one nautical mile from the Samoan island of Upolu on Saturday night while surveying a reef.
It was the first time New Zealand lost a military vessel since World War II.
All 75 people onboard the specialist diving and ocean imaging ship, including seven scientists and four foreign military personnel, were evacuated and rescued early on Sunday, and officials are investigating the cause of the incident and how it could damage the local marine environment.
However, since Saturday, the ship’s British-born captain Commander Yvonne Gray, who previously served in the UK’s Royal Navy, has been inundated by sexist trolling online.
New Zealand’s defence minister Judith Collins defended the captain in the wake of the negativity: ‘The one thing that we already know did not cause it is the gender of the ship’s captain.
Since Saturday, the ship’s British-born captain Commander Yvonne Gray (pictured) has been inundated by sexist trolling online
HMNZS Manawanui caught fire and later capsized after it ran aground one nautical mile from the Samoan island of Upolu on Saturday night
New Zealand’s defence minister Judith Collins (pictured) defended the captain in the wake of the negativity
She added she was appalled to see trolling from ‘armchair admirals, people who will never have to make decisions which mean life or death for their subordinates.’
‘I thought seriously in 2024 what the hell is going on here with people who are sitting there in their armchair operating a keyboard making comments about people that they do not know, about an area they do not know and they are just vile. Where’s a bit of decency?’
Collins, the country’s first female defence minister, said that women in uniform have been abused in the street since the sinking.
‘This is outrageous behaviour and New Zealand is not known for this and we are better than it.’
Environmental officials are worried that the ship will cause massive damage to the area, which hasn’t been officially surveyed since 1987.
On Thursday morning, Samoa’s Marine Pollution Advisory Committee (MPAC) said the ship was ‘leaking oil from three separate locations’, but that there continues to be ‘no trace’ of oil washing up onshore.
HMNZS Manawanui ran aground off the south coast of the Samoan island of Upolu on Saturday
Samoan police and emergency crews reportedly worked with Australian Defence personnel to pull the vessel’s crew to safety
The ship ran aground near Samoa
All 75 people onboard were rescued from the sinking ship
The exact cause of the ship’s grounding is still unknown but the New Zealand Defence Force is investigating the incident
Local residents are still terrified that marine life will be severely affected.
One man, Manu Percival, told Radio NZ: ‘There’s so many green sea turtles in that area, so many sting rays.’
‘Right where the ship went down just inland, there’s a huge lagoon of brackish water and it houses all sort of animals. Coconut crabs, everything. They’ll all be affected.’
New Zealand’s military said team had been established ‘to react to any contamination of local beaches and to remove debris that has started to come ashore’.
It added that divers from the Samoan Ministry of Resources and Natural Environment had also ‘observed damage to the reef where the collision occurred’.
