New Zealand Navy Comes to Wellington

2011 marks the 70th anniversary of the creation of the New Zealand Navy and as part of the celebration 11 of the 13 ships in the fleet were in Wellington the weekend of September 30th to October 3rd.  You'd describe the navy as defensive, not offensive with so few ships.  Only two of the ships are armed with more than gatlin guns or machine guns.  The city was totally abuze while the fleet was in town.  There was a parade down the main street in town

Below you'll find a review of everything we saw taking place in town during the Navy's visit.

The fleet steams into port.  We were at the Archives digitising records and caught a few photo's from the top of the building in the "Tea Room".

This is the navy's newest addition the HMNZS Wellington - P55.  She's an off-shore patrol boat that was commissioned in 2010.

When the ships came into port, HMNZS Te Mana - F111 fired off salvo.  You can see the ring of smoke over the bow of the ship.  The rugby stadium is in the background.

Here the HMNZS Te Kaha - F77 is aided by two tug boats as she gets ready to dock just behind the national museum.

Here's the Te Kaha docked.  She's classed a frigate and is armed with a 5" deck gun, vertical launch missile system, torpedoes and a close in weapon system for protection.  She also carry's a Seasprite helicopter for submarine duty and rescue.

Here's the HMNZS Te Mana - F111 also classed as a frigate with the same armaments as the Te Kaha above.

This is the HMNZS Canterbury - L421.  She's a naval logistic support vessel and the largest ship in the fleet.

Here's HMNZS Otago - P148.  Like the Wellington, she's an offshore patrol vessel.

These two are the HMNZS Rotoito - P3569 and the HMNZS Taupo P3570.  They are two of the four inshore patrol vessels in the navy.  They generally go off-shore no more than about 20 miles and conduct surveillance and support.

Here are the last two inshore patrol vessels the HMNZS Hawea - P3571 and the HMNZS Pukaki - P3568.

Supporting the above 10 ships you have the HMNZS Endeavour - A11 support vessel.  She provides fuel and stores for the entire navy.

Ten of the eleven ships that came to Wellington can be spotted in this photograph.  Can you see them?

The two frigate class ships the Te Kaha and the Te Mana are both armed with 5" guns as shown here.  These would be similar to the guns found on US destroyers.

A number of the ships are armed with self defense weapons similar to this 20mm gatlin gun.  Pretty cool!

All of the ships are armed with 50cal machine guns similar to this one.

Then the final armorment is the might "Kiwi" bird on the side of each of the smoke stacks in the fleet.

As I mentioned, with the navy in port, they marched down Lampton Quey in full uniform and formation.

Here they are, 600 strong, headed to the city council building.

They all dressed up pretty sharp!

Here are a group of the officers with medals pinned!

One of their marines got into the action.  Isn't he what you'd expect to see?

Wouldn't be quite complete without a band would it?

Hey, that's not a member of the Navy!  That's Ann McVey waving, smiling and I think I saw a wink as a sailor passed by.

You could sure tell that the navy was in town.  They were in all the pubs and cafes across the city.