Build Date
1941
Boat Builder
Senior Foundry Company, Auckland
Length
57 Feet
Beam
14 Feet 4 Inches
Building Hinau
Realising there was a need for more minesweepers around New Zealand’s waters the government commissioned the build of several Castle-Class minesweepers. This design was chosen for its simplicity at a time when New Zealand’s ship building facilities were limited. Hinau would become the first of these and as such she was also the first naval ship built in New Zealand for the Royal New Zealand Navy.
Hinau was launched on August 28th 1941, at exactly 11:00 AM with the National Film unit present to film it. The build continued after her launch with a recycled boiler from Rangitoto being lowered inside on the 5th September 1941. Hinau also had Rangitoto’s old single screw reciprocating engine installed. This engine was capable if 10.5 knots and her full capacity was 100 tons of coal.
Hinau then undertook sea trials in Aril 1942 but these weren’t a complete success. The steering gear was stiff, needing two people to manoeuvre her and the engine room was deemed too hot and stuffy to be workable in the summer months. They tried to help this with modifications, but they never fully resolved the problems with her engine room.
Draft
10 Feet 6 Inches
Weight
625 tons
Official Number
PND T17 / Admiralty number T399
Hinau Is Commissioned For Service
On the 23rd July 1942 Hinau was commissioned for service in the LL Division. She then changed to the 194th Auxiliary M/S Division in 1943. Like Rimu and Manuka, Hinau was fitted with LL magnetic minesweeping cables, power supply & batteries and SA Acoustic sweep (Kango hammers). Also, like Rimu and Manuka, Hinau had a generator room, no enclosed navigation deck, and no guns installed on her bridge or bow. She had two masts and a different interior layout than the steel minesweepers. When working she had 26 officers and ratings.
In March 1943 Hinau went through her first survey and refit which resulted in extra belting being added to the sides of her hull. But only a few months later on the 18th August 1943 Hinau had a fire in the forward screw space or mess. It was discovered quickly and extinguished with very little damage to the ship itself, though some of the crew’s belongings were destroyed. She went in for another refit later that month, presumably for repairs relating to the fire. Her last refit was in October 1944.
Hinau served the Auckland region and voyaged to Wellington and the South Island at times. But her service was deemed “unspectacular and very mundane” by the Torpedo Bay Navy Museum as the only mines laid off Wellington and Lyttleton were placed too deeply to cause any damage and they were only found after the Germans surrendered.
Hinau’s Final Resting Place
By the 4th September 1945 Hinau was decommissioned and laid up, along with Rimu and Manuka, as there was a shortage of coal to fuel these coal-fired minesweepers. Though Hinau and Rimu would be used to supply steam to heat the other ships alongside her. Almost ten years later Hinau was deemed too costly to maintain so along with Rimu, and Toia, she was put up for sale. She sold to F Appleton of Penrose for £274.10 ($17,937 NZD today) on the 6th September 1954. Penrose also brought Rimu and the tug Toia all of which were to be scrapped at the viaduct basin in Auckland.
She was then moved from the Devonport Naval base by the 8th February 1955 to be hulked. After this she lay idle in Auckland until 1958 when she was sold to the Parry Brothers, and she was run aground at the shingle quarry the company owned in Whakatiwai, as a breakwater and for their shingle loading operations.
In 1987 her propeller was removed by conservationists from the HMNZS Ngapona naval base. The propeller was then erected at the naval base to stand as a memorial to Hinau, and to those who served on the minesweepers.
By 2000, woodworm and rot had worsened the state of her wreck, eating through the majority of the wooden hull that was submerged at high tide. At this time her wreck would become unstable and she would gain a small list to starboard by 2001, which would then become a 17 degree list to port after 2001, which she still has in 2024.
Despite the wreck becoming unstable, there are no proposals to remove the wreck, in fact quite the opposite is true as she is now seen as a bit of an icon in the Firth of Thames. She has even appeared on the cover of Dave Dobbyn’s album The Islander in 1998.
References
To research Hinau we used research provided by Liam K and The Torpedo Bay Navy Museum
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