'Beautiful' navy ship sails into retirement
Friday, 1 December 2017
For 30 years, HMNZS Endeavour and her crew have sailed the world's oceans, supplying and supporting naval operations in its role as fleet tanker.
But on Thursday night, it was curry under the stars in the lee of Rangitoto as the ship prepared to berth at Auckland's Devonport naval base for the last time.
On Friday morning Endeavour and her 50-odd crew steamed proudly into port to a naval gun salute, and then decommissioning.
Joining the ship's complement on her final voyage was Janet Wrightson-Lean, whose involvement with the ship extends back to its launching.
**READ MORE:
* New Plymouth's goodbye to Endeavour
* Endeavour's $500m replacement
* Government's proposed $20b defence spend**
Wrightson-Lean's a landlubber, a civvie, but she is deeply connected to the Endeavour.
In 1988, as the wife of the New Plymouth mayor, Wrightson-Lean became newly commissioned Endeavour's 'Lady Sponsor' and travelled to Ulsan, South Korea to commission the navy's new fleet tanker.
She was the first non-royal to have the honour of commissioning a Royal New Zealand Navy Ship.
Now, after the ship was farewelled by its adoptive city New Plymouth, Wrightson-Lean and three of the original crew were back aboard one last time.
Her now-adult daughter Greer was christened aboard the ship, in its wardroom.
Also aboard from its maiden voyage were navy reservist Pete Sund, retired sailor Kevin Heaveldt and still-serving Petty Officer Marty Plant.
They only spent months serving together but 'became like brothers' aboard the 10,000 tonne ship that came to be known as 'The Big E', Plant said.
Heaveldt, then the vessel's electrician, remembers shipbuilders Hyundai had wrapped everything in plastic – the pickup crew spent hours literally unwrapping their new ship.
'It had that new car smell about it,' Heaveldt said.
There were also a few teething problems: five days out of Ulsan the ship's fresh water generator failed forcing the parched crew to scavenge drinking water from the ship's lifeboats, he said.
Extra beer was issued in lieu of water.
Days later sailing through the Straits of Malacca the Endeavour rescued a boatload of lost Indonesian fisherman.
The men remember making running repairs to the lost fishermen's boat while trying to teach them how to read nautical charts so they could find their way home.
After finally arriving in Devonport the tanker was soon hard at work becoming the navy's floating pit stop. Ship captain Commander Mark Doolan said the Endeavour has travelled more than 1.6 million kilometres, making more than 1000 ship-to-ship refuels over its career.
But the refuelling equipment has now been stripped out and on its last night at sea crew whiled away the hours anchored in dead-calm Rangitoto waters.
Most of the ship's complement sat at picnic tables on the rust-streaked flight deck competing in a quiz.
One deck below several sailors dangled fishing lines, hauling large snapper out of the dusk waters - the ship's chef fillets them on the go.
After decommissioning, the ship's crew will scatter to new postings, some will go civilian, some will retire.
The ship itself will leave Devonport in March, sold for scrap, or as Plant puts it 'be turned into razor blades'.
Endeavour's brand new replacement, $500m HMNZS Aotearoa, is expected to be delivered in 2020.
Plant, a 35-year navy veteran, hopes the navy will let him stay on so he can see Aotearoa before he retires.
It's the 'family' feel crew will miss most about the ship, being aboard with 'good mates', Plant said.
'In the middle of the ocean with no land around you can sit down and think about a lot of things, life really,' but commitment to the ship and crewmates kept them focussed.
'It's pretty sad to see this ship decommissioned, she's a beautiful ship and she will always been in my mind.'