HMNZS ENDEAVOUR

By SLT Sam Turner RNZN

May was busy for Endeavour, as after reaching Singapore, we successfully represented the RNZN in the Western Pacific Maritime Symposium and also in Exercise Bersama Shield 09. The highlight of the WMSX period was our first RAS with an American warship, the USS Kidd. Aside being another “first” for us, this RAS stood out because Kidd’s chefs had freshly-baked American cookies just for us! Their piece de résistance was, once “RAS Complete” was passed, their ship accelerated away at over thirty knots, creating a wake large enough to cause us to roll quite a bit – an impressive feat! Although only two days long, the WMSX was an excellent opportunity to develop bonds and training with navies and nations across the Western Pacific Region.

For Exercise Bersama Shield, our focus this year was on Maritime Interdiction Operations (MIO). We became Merchant Vessel Endeavour, an “enemy” supply ship smuggling weapons experts to the islands within the Joint Operations Area of the exercise. Being built to Lloyds’ classifications Endeavour is an excellent boarding platform for building up the MIO skill-set. However, our “experts” were clever in hiding from the boarding teams and we successfully landed them on Tioman Island despite the blockade.

After the Bersama Shield closing ceremony and our farewell to Sembawang Wharf, we sailed for the final exercise of the deployment – MALZEA, beginning in Lumut, Malaysia. This is a bi-lateral exercise geared towards interoperability and developing the already strong relationship between our two navies.

A big part of Exercise MALZEA is the international sports trophy competed for between the navies each exercise and is the main social event. This year the sports were soccer, basketball, rugby, tug-o-war and the RNZN took a clean sweep. Basketball and tug-o-war were fairly one sided affairs with the RNZN making the most of their size over the Malaysian teams. Soccer, normally a strong sport for the Malaysians, this year was won by the Kiwis. The rugby was close and the Malaysians went to an early lead. Our boys defied the heat to make a comeback to secure the win. The match was entertaining, including a couple of tackles that sent players flying through the drinks table! Of particular note were SLT Zia Jones in both basketball and rugby, ACO Wano-Tohia in rugby and tug-o-war and ACH Zylen Thomas’ fantastic 3 goals in soccer.

Once at sea, LSCS Elphick-Moon represented Endeavour and the RNZN during a cross-deck to KD Lekir where he provided expertise on underway replenishment to the Malaysian frigate. They had completed only one RAS previously in the ship’s entire 25 year life! LSCS Elphick-Moon thoroughly enjoyed the Malaysian cuisine in Lekir, especially Roti Cenai and Nasi Lemak.

The waters of Asia are extremely busy, compared to the NZ coast, and so our lookouts were well practiced in searching for the small hard-to-see-on-radar fishing vessels which so often congregate in large fleets. The Officers of the Watch were also used to analysing the visual sightings, the radar picture and the Automatic Identification System to decide on a route for the ship among the many vessels, big and small.

Our Closing Ceremony for MALZEA occurred in Port Klang, the port for the capital city of Kuala Lumpur, which afforded both ships of the Kiwi Task Group a weekend of R & R before commencing our passage back to NZ, via Darwin and Queensland. We were all looking forward to seeing our friends and families once again.

Flashback: The Long Voyage North

When we sailed from NZ back in April, we faced 20 days at sea. But once inside the warm waters of the Coral Sea marine growth started to block Endeavour’s engine cooling system, and we had to undergo an 11 hour shutdown of the plant to allow the engineers to get stuck into the cleaning. But that allowed the ship’s company to enjoy our first ‘Hands to Bathe’ of the year and our Engineers came up for a well-earned swim.

Another highlight was passing Rabaul, where the active, smoking volcano is impressive. It is the same volcano that destroyed Rabaul in a 1994 eruption.

To entertain ourselves we held a beard growing competition and a pub quiz tournament.

Beards: POMT Tipene won the ‘Most Feral’; AET Flay the ‘Baby Face’ and POCH Bowden for ‘Best Design’.

The Pub Quiz was run along team lines (not messes). The CO’s Sandals team ( the CO, a SLT, an ASCS and an ACH) had the winning formula. Other notable teams were Team RAMROD (the Seamen JRs) and Team SEX (Supply, Engineering and Executive Officers). Thanks to LT Kerry Driver for putting the quiz together and, more importantly, enduring the many unjustified (and occasionally justified) retorts to the official answers.

A second stop at sea was due to a main engine cylinder cracking. To repair it required the manifold to be removed and the cylinder head replaced. While this sounds easy in theory, moving a 400kg cylinder head in the bowels of a swaying ship is not. The Engineers worked long into the following morning in a 1 in 2 watch bill to get the repairs made.

The Ship’s Company again took the breakdown as an opportunity for a second ‘Hands to Bathe’, this time a few miles south of the Equator. The original plan had been to stop and swim over the Equator but we were just too far south. King Neptune embarked in Te Mana, but we expected to meet him on our voyage home.

The ships finally arrived in Qingdao, China, on the morning of 20 April, amid 30 knot winds. However we got alongside after three weeks at sea and berthed to join the Chinese Navy’s 60th Anniversary Fleet Review.

Facts and Figures from our Deployment:

• Nautical Miles Steamed: 17,371
• Fuel Transfers/Replenishment at Sea: 13
• Promotions: 4
• Purchased from the ship’s Canteen:
  • 4,992 cans of soft drink
  • 3,014 bars of chocolate
• The Galley served:
  • Milk: 1,058 L
  • Eggs: 12,960
  • Steaks: 1,512
  • Weetbix: 2,376
  • Vegetables (excluding Potatoes): 2.15 Tonnes
  • Potatoes: 1,860 kg
  • Ice Cream: 164 L
• Medical:
  • 248 band-aids
  • 480 panadol tablets
  • 240 seasick tablets

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