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| HMNZS Hautapu (T26)(T340) |
After her rudder was badly damaged by striking an unidentified object off the northern Kaikoura Coast
on the night of November 2, 1963, the Hautapu, a 41m. steam trawler, ex minesweeper, was beached
in Ward Bay, between Chancet Rocks and Long Point, seven and a half miles south of Cape Campbell.
With heavy seas pounding her, she listed heavily to starboard and quickly filled with water. The
eight-man crew got ashore through heavy surf.
The Hautapu lay on the beach for several months, at the mercy of the sea and vandals, both causing
extensive damage. Salvage efforts were slow, but during April 1964 several attempts were made.
These culminated in her being towed off the beach by the Perano’s whaling tender Tuatea on April 29,
1964. The Hautapu was towed into Wellington next day where, on slipping and inspection, was
found to be a constructive total loss and was laid up. For two years she lay there, until May 1966
when her owners gave her to the Royal New Zealand Air Force for use as a target. May 31 was set
for the exercise in which she was to be sunk 20 miles south of Cape Palliser by Air Force Vampires,
Canberras and a Sunderland. However, the ship that was to tow the Hautapu to sea, H.M.N.Z.S.
Inverell, was diverted to search for the collier Kaitawa sunk off Cape Reinga, on the 23rd May, and so
the exercise was postponed and the Hautapu remained at the Air Force base at Shelly Bay. In the
early hours of Thursday June 2, 1966, a scuttling charge placed in the Hautapu’s engine room by
Navy, ‘cracker stackers,’ exploded and she sank stern first at her berth, bow still afloat. The charge
was designed to be remotely fired in case the Air Force missed their target. The Air Force would
have still looked good. No one has ever been charged with the sinking.
More here -https://rnzncomms.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/hautapu-story.pdf
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