HMNZS Stawell

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Built: HMA Naval Dockyard, Melbourne, Australia 
Type: Bathurst class minesweeper
Pennant No.: M348
Named after : Australian town
Displacement: 790 tons (1025 tons full load).
Length: 186 ft./56.7 m Beam: 31ft./9.5 m Draft: 8.5 ft./2.6 m
Propulsion: triple expansion, two shafts, 1800 ihp
Speed: 15 kts.
Complement :
Armament: (when built): 1 x 4in, 1 x 20mm AA, 6 machine guns


Stawell was completed on 23 August 1943 as HMAS Stawell. Based at Darwin she was deployed mainly on escort duties off East Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies. She bombarded enemy troops in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea, sank an enemy barge and escaped unharmed by Japanese air attacks.

In February 1952 she was nominated by Australia to be gifted to NZ and was formally taken over and commissioned on 5 May 1952 as HMNZS Stawell. She sailed to Auckland for a refit by Mason Bros. and on completion 22 July 1953 she was placed nto reserve. In 1954 she was reclassified as an ocean minesweeper

Stawell recommissioned on 12 July 1955 for reservist and CNR training duties and spent the next four years around the NZ coast assisting the four RNZNVR divisions.. 

In June 1957 Stawell sailed at short notice when distress signals were picked up from the disabled immigrant ship, Captain Hobson, some 570 miles out in the Pacific. She was subsequently taken in tow by the Port Line’s Port Macquarie, and at the same time, HMNZS Stawell stood by until the two merchant ships made Auckland seven days later.


The ship paid off on 4 July 1959 and was placed in reserve. She was scrapped in Auckland in 1968.