HMNZS Te Mana (F111)
 HMNZS Te Mana in Dunedin
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| History | |
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 New Zealand
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| Name: | HMNZS Te Mana |
| Namesake: | The concept of Mana |
| Builder: | Tenix Defence Systems |
| Laid down: | 18 May 1996 |
| Launched: | 10 May 1997 |
| Commissioned: | 10 December 1999 |
| Identification: | MMSI number: 512000700 |
| Motto: | "Kokiri Kia U" – Striving towards perfection |
| Status: | Active as of 2015. |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Anzac class frigate |
| Displacement: | 3,600 tonnes full load |
| Length: | 118 m (387 ft) |
| Beam: | 15 m (49 ft) |
| Draught: | 4 m (13 ft) |
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| Speed: | 27 knots (50 km/h; 31 mph) |
| Range: | 6,000 nautical miles (11,000 km; 6,900 mi) at 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph) |
| Complement: | 178 Officers and ratings (25 Officers, 153 ratings) |
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| Armament: |
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| Aircraft carried: | One Kaman SH-2G Super Seasprite helicopter |
HMNZS Te Mana (F111) is one of ten Anzac class frigates and one of two serving in the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN). The name Te Mana is Māori, approximately translating as 'status' or 'authority' (for further information on this term, see Mana). The ship was laid down under the joint Anzac project by Tenix Defence Systems at Williamstown, Victoria in 1996, launched in 1997, and commissioned into the RNZN in 1999 as the Royal New Zealand Navy Flagship.
In 2003 and 2004 and 2013–14, Te Mana was deployed on operations in the Arabian Sea. In 2005, she became the first New Zealand warship to visit a Russian port, Vladivostok.
5 August 2015 saw her emerge from the dry docks at Devonport Naval Base wearing the US Navy 'Haze Grey' coating, following the ships major systems upgrade which has currently seen her in a long refit. It is understood that Te Mana will soon begin work-up exercises to return her back into the fleet.
During the mid-1980s, the RNZN began considering the replacement of their four Leander class frigates. Around the same time, a deterioration in New Zealand-United States relations forced the New Zealand government to improve ties with local nations. As the Royal Australian Navy was seeking to replace their River class destroyer escorts with ships nearly identical to what the RNZN wanted, the two nations decided to collaborate on the acquisition in early 1987. Tenders had been requested in 1986, and 12 ship designs (including an airship) were submitted. By August 1987, these were narrowed down in October to Blohm + Voss's MEKO 200 design, the M class (later Karel Doorman class) offered by Royal Schelde, and a scaled-down Type 23 frigate proposed by Yarrow Shipbuilders. In 1989, the Australian government announced that Melbourne-based shipbuilder AMECON (which became Tenix Defense) would build the modified MEKO 200 design. However, the decision to buy the frigates had been highly controversial in New Zealand, primarily because of the cost of purchasing frigate-type ships, plus the idea that the high-capability warships would be too few and too overspecialised for the fisheries and Economic Exclusion Zone (EEZ) patrols expected to be the RNZN's core operations. Despite ongoing debate, the New Zealand government agreed to purchase two frigates in addition to the RAN's eight, and had an option for two more. This option expired in 1997 without the New Zealanders acting upon it; there were proposals to buy a new or second-hand Anzac outside the terms of the original contract, but a lack of political support stopped this developing, and the number built for the RNZN remained at two. The drop in capability and the issue of tying up the Anzacs on EEZ patrols when they could be deployed more suitably elsewhere were factors leading to the RNZN's Project Protector acquisition program.
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