Raoul Resupply

Raoul Resupply John and Ann Rhodes sail to Raoul Island on the frigate Canterbury Rangitoto, Waiheke and Tiritiri Matenga slide past as the frigate Canterbury knifes through the waters of the Hauraki Gulf. Somewhere ahead is Endeavour, our tanker companion for this five day voyage to Raoul Island in the Kermadec group, 1000 kilometres and two day’s steaming north-east from Devonport Naval Base.

Built for the Royal New Zealand Navy in Scotland in 1971, Canterbury is its oldest ship in service, to be decommissioned in 2005. She's one of a very few frigates of the steam-powered Leander class surviving world-wide.

In her final years Canterbury serves a valuable training role for the Royal New Zealand Navy. While its Anzac frigates are tasked with far-flung assignments, Canterbury stays nearer home. Her territory is the south-west Pacific: Australia, New Zealand’s sub-Antarctic islands, the Kermadecs, Polynesia. Navy engineers keep the old girl going by cannibalising parts from sister ship Wellington, lying de-commissioned at Devonport. Right now windscreen wipers for the bridge are a problem, says an electrician.

On these missions training is paramount. Canterbury can be manned by as few as 150 crew, but regularly (as now) carries 250. Some, like us, are in a frigate for the first time.

We’re "messing" with the petty officers and sharing HMNZS Endeavour refuelling Canterbury at sea (John Rhodes)

Tramping & Mountaineering 2004

John Rhodes their tiny recreation space. My bunk is forward, in a petty officers’ cabin labelled ominously “The Old Bouncy Palace”, where the deck overhead slopes up to the forecastle. In the top bunk of three, I face a perilous descent if I need to exit fast.

Nine passengers are aboard - six of them destined for DoC or MetService work on Raoul Island. Others include three green-back turtles in tanks on the signal deck. Strays to New Zealand waters, they’ve been cared for at Kelly Tarlton’s Underwater World and will be released in the Raoul Island Marine Reserve. Also here are two dogs with handler Scott Theobald, who will search out survivors of Raoul’s cat population, which has plummeted since a rat eradication programme in 2002. Bill Witham will service meteorological equipment - Raoul has the only weather station in thousands of square kilometres of the Pacific Ocean. Cedric Chambers has the job of installing a new cable for the island’s flying fox, the only way stores and equipment can get ashore when vessels without helicopters re-supply the island. We taxpayers benefit doubly from Canterbury’s missions to Raoul: there’s no charge to DoC, and the training

A junior rating studies on deck while Canterbury is anchored at Raoul (John Rhodes)

opportunity is used to full advantage.

I walk aft. The "helo" roars in to the flight deck (out of bounds during flying) where the flight crew lash it down ready for night flying. The machine’s empty hangar seems too small till you realise its blades fold. As the sun settles below a sheet of cloud, the grey ship is touched with sudden light, and for a gilded moment everyone pauses. Soon all must go below, for a man overboard is impossible to find in the dark. I retreat to the main deck, lit by red night lights. In the recreation room off-duty petty officers watch "Star Wars 2".

Bain-maries of food appear in the P.O.'s mess, which has sixteen places for three times as many diners. First served are those going on watch. Potato crisps, green beans and bacon, tomato casserole, pasta, roast beef and chicken. Plus cheesecake, carrot cake, fruit cake. Not for nothing do Defence Forces chefs have a reputation, and Canterbury’s serve three cooked meals a day. The navy sails on its stomach!

Er - when it feels well. The sheltered waters of the gulf are far behind, and waking for the second day afloat I find the ship’s motion a little, shall we say, vigorous. A trip to the "heads" (Navy-speak for toilets) tells me I'd be unwise to have breakfast. Instead I’ll navigate my way up on deck and watch the sea.

Surprisingly, in a ship only 113 metres long and 13 metres wide it's easy to get lost. But the passageway or “main drag” running the length of the ship has points of reference. Near the sanctuary of my bunk it curves around the gun turret housing. Midships on Tramping & Mountaineering 2004 the port side is the wardroom, with a glimpse of a steward serving officers at white-clothed tables with high-backed wooden chairs (we P.O.'s eat comfortably off formica). The corridor dog-legs at the galley, and on the next corner, starboard side, is our P.O.’s mess, where I’m taking fluids only. Just aft, a tiny recreation room has enough space for half a dozen P.O.’s to watch DVDs and a cubicle where four more can play the board game Uckers, a kind of naval Ludo. Aft again, on the port side, is the junior rates’ mess. Several messes but one galley - while everyone gets the same food, the way it’s served varies with rank.

The “main drag” has hardly a centimetre of unused wall or ceiling. It's full of pipes and valves and air ducting and electrical trunking and neatly coiled fire hoses and ELSAs (emergency life saving apparatuses). Here all the ship's sinews, nerves and blood vessels are on view. Underfoot, polished brass access ports are set in gleaming linoleum. Everything is spotless. The passage is just wide enough for two people to pass if one steps aside, which soon becomes second nature.

For Canterbury is alive with men and women. Cloth badges on overalls indicate gunners, stokers, engineers, naval police, medicos, electricians, divers, administrators, chefs, flying officers, signalmen. Red armbands mark those on fire duty. There are people at computers, people in meetings, people cleaning and lubricating things, people in obscure corners doing everything that keeps the ship alive and on course and able, if necessary, to show its aging teeth. And people asleep or relaxing. Life on Canterbury seems somewhat slack till you remember this isn't just a workplace, it's home too. If you’ve been on watch at night you sleep in the day with a blanket curtaining your tiny bunk-space.

On deck in the waist - the region between the forecastle and the flight deck - passengers gather to watch the morning’s entertainment, replenishment at sea ("RAS" for short). Protective hemp mats are laid on the deck, telephones set up, ropes and pulleys made ready. We sweep in close beside Endeavour. A figure on the other ship raises a rifle and fires a line across. A telephone wire, a distance rope with flags every 5 metres and a cable to haul the fuel hose follow. Signal lanterns flash. Endeavour's derrick swings out, and the great phallic delivery hose slowly approaches the waiting aperture on Canterbury. Hills of water race through an 80-foot gap between grey hulls. One moment the red anti-fouling shows below Endeavour's water line, the next she's taking water on deck.

People are relaxed, even laid-back, and call each other by first names. Where is the clicking of heels and the "yes Sir, No Sir" I expected? The people of this floating community know their jobs and get on with them. A rare mistake is corrected gently. Everyone tries their hardest. We haven't heard a cross voice or a harsh order.

In late afternoon, crew in shorts, T-shirts and sneakers do a half-hour of intense, non-compulsory P.E. on the flight deck. They run out-and-back laps, juggle medicine balls and ride imaginary upside-down bikes to the urgings of Physical Training Officer Emma Cairns, herself vigorously participating.

We wake on day three to see the volcanic island of Raoul approaching on the starboard side. A man with A diver hooks up ”Oscar” for lifting aboard (John Rhodes)

Tramping & Mountaineering 2004 a helmet leads us to the whooping-thumping Seasprite and buckles us in. A minute later we're over cliffs, then coming down, whipping trees and grass to a frenzy. Ours is the privilege of seven hours ashore. Except for the helo crew and a couple of ground crew, everyone else stays on board. The Seasprite ferries fuel containers, timber and stores all day.

Saturday morning and we're on the way home. Once outside the Raoul Island Marine Reserve it's time for gunnery practice. The forward deck is out of bounds - for obvious reasons - but there's no escape from the eardrum-threatening explosion of two 4.5 inch guns. Light bulbs in the forward accommodation shatter. The rounds are devalued to a few cents because they're useless in any other ship, and Canterbury has enough to use them with abandon. In contrast, shells for the guns on Anzac frigates cost hundreds of dollars.

On Sunday morning "Oscar", a stuffed overall with an orange float for a head, is thrown over the side. The officers on watch have a challenge. Without losing sight of Oscar, they must throw the ship into a sweeping circle and bring us alongside the hapless dummy. Without direct control, they relay commands to the armour-plated wheel-house two decks below. In Navy patois, failure to make close contact is called "garlicking", but nobody knows why. Second and third attempts at the manoeuvre, which demands the utmost of teamwork and co-ordination, are allowed. When we're near enough, a wet-suited and flippered diver jumps in, resuscitates Oscar and harnesses him for hauling aboard. All the while a marksman on the signal deck with a semi-automatic rifle covers for sharks.

$60,000,000 worth of Seasprite ferries passengers ashore (John Rhodes)

Sunday afternoon brings a non-stop cricket match for off-watch crew. All messes have been busy making balls (anything soft, rolled and bound with masking tape), definitely an expendable item in the South Pacific Cricket Ground. Bats are plywood and the pitch is the flight deck, where plastic netting protects the helo from too-exuberant bowling. Play is fast and furious. Hit the ball over the side and you're out. Spectators watch from the stern or from the bridge by closed circuit TV. The P.O.'s mess wins, and the galley produces sausage rolls for the after-match function.

Afterwards we chat with Reuben, a stoker. He’s quietly proud of his role in Canterbury; and given his working environment, he's acutely aware that a hole a foot across sixteen feet below water-line will let in 2700 tonnes of water in an hour. "If the ship gets holed the hatches are shut and I stay below. My life goes to save the others."

I don overalls for a visit to the engine-room with Lindsay, an engineer. A hatch in the main drag, with a painted bulldog and "BEWARE - ENGINEERS - BRUISERS BELOW", lets us down to the heart of the ship, a control room with dials and needles - no digital readouts here! We're doing 158 rpm on both engines. Just aft, twin steam turbines send 22 megawatts of power to twin five-bladed propellors, via reduction gear boxes and two 27-inch tail shafts like spinning tree-trunks of steel. "Modern ships have dieselelectric units or diesel-powered gas turbines", shouts Lindsay. Compressed air can be pumped beside the shafts to disguise Canterbury's acoustic signature, confusing enemies.

Tramping & Mountaineering 2004 After five minutes I find the heat, motion and absence of a horizon are too much, and disaster threatens. "The boilers are even more interesting!" calls a disappointed Lindsay as I bolt for the ladder, the hatch, the main drag, and up one flight to open air.

In the PO's mess the kapa haka group practises for Noumea: E hoki mai ra to guitar while Canterbury heels twenty degrees. I go forward for a shower. Last time the cold water knob came off in my hand, and I thought "Ah, the maintenance isn't perfect!”. But already it's been fixed.

On our last morning the Waitemata Harbour is mercifully calm. It's just getting light, and with the permission of the officer of the watch I'm on the bridge as Rangitoto comes in view. Everyone here seems so young - is this warship run by a bunch of kids? We come in to the wharf at Devonport. This has to be done right, for critical eyes are watching. You can feel the tension. An officer in sparkling uniform supervises on the fore-deck.

Handing in my sheets and blankets at the store I tell the junior rate I've found Navy life less formal than I expected. He says "At sea we're a big family". I think about that. It's a family that works. Some might argue that we should spend taxes on health and education instead of frigates; but if we're going to have these ships we might as well do it right. And after five days on Canterbury, I know we do.

Outside on the quay a squad of sailors passes. Marching, chins up, looking straight ahead.