Remember the wreck of the HMNZS Manawanui?
It used to be one of only nine New Zealand Navy Vessels, and it sank in an until-now ‘unexplained’ accident off the coast of Samoa.
The female captain of the ship, Yvonne Gray, we mercilessly trolled online for having lost the ship, prompting the defense minister of the country – also a woman, Judith Collins – to come to public with a strong statement.
But Collins did not explain why the aging New Zealand Navy hardware is in such poor state of maintenance that out of the now remaining eight ships only five are operational.
Instead, the Minister took a page of the feminist book and focused on bashing what she called were ‘vile and misogynistic online remarks’ by ‘armchair admirals’ about the Lesbian female captain of the HMNZS Manawanui that ran aground, caught fire and sank off the coast of Samoa.
But now, it turns out that – surprise! – there is good reason to doubt the capacity of Captain Gray, as it arises that her ship’s crew ‘had mistakenly left the vessel on autopilot’, according to the a government inquiry.
BBC reported:
“Crew members of the HMNZS Manawanui had thought the ship was under manual control while sailing in Samoan waters.
All 75 people aboard were evacuated safely. But the submerged ship started leaking oil into the ocean, prompting fears in nearby coastal villages.”
The HMNZS Manawanui is the first ship New Zealand has lost since World War Two.
“The first report from an inquiry into the incident was released on Friday. It found that crew members had believed there were problems with the ship’s thruster when they could not change the vessel’s direction.”
‘None of the crew members’ checked whether the ship was still on autopilot, before it crashed. Notably, the female captain is absent from this part of the BBC report.
Navy chief Garin Golding:
“The direct cause of the grounding has been determined as a series of human errors. Muscle memory from the person in control should have leaned over to that panel and checked whether the screen said autopilot or not.”
The Manawanui was conducting a survey of waters off the island of Upolu when it struck a reef, caught fire and sank.
“In the following days, social media users started trolling the ship’s female captain, claiming that her gender was to blame. These commenters were denounced at the time by New Zealand’s defense minister as ‘armchair admirals’.”
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