New Zealand's revived patrol ship Otago misses its deployment after a fuel system failure

New Zealand's navy has postponed the planned deployment of the offshore patrol vessel HMNZS Otago after a fuel system failure during its return to service, leaving a NZ$35 million reactivation project stalled with no date for repairs, the Wellington newspaper The Post reported on 11 November.

The New Zealand Defence Force confirmed to the paper that Otago had not been able to deploy as planned because of a fuel system problem that arose during regeneration, and that the deployment had been put back while the fault is investigated and fixed. A spokesperson said no confirmed timeframe could be given for the repair. Until it is fixed, the ship has lost its authority to operate at sea.

The failure came before the crew could finish basic operational readiness evaluations. According to the defence force, the navy's Maritime Training Group had assessed the ship as safe to continue its preparations, but the final evaluations were not completed once the deployment was postponed.

Otago returned to sea on 15 August after five years away, with a crew of 56 under Commander Andrew Sorensen starting sea acceptance trials in the Hauraki Gulf. At the time the defence force said the trials were testing overhauled engines and generators, replacement navigation systems and upgraded sensors and control systems, and that the ship would begin operational deployments from late October 2026.

The defence force told The Post that the NZ$35 million refit has stayed within budget, but that the extra cost of repairing the fuel system is being absorbed by the navy's everyday running budget.

Otago and its sister ship Wellington, together with the inshore patrol vessel Hawea, were taken out of service in 2021 and 2022 because the navy did not have enough qualified sailors to crew them. The decision to bring Otago back followed the loss of the dive and hydrographic vessel HMNZS Manawanui, which ran aground and sank off the Samoan island of Upolu in October 2024. In December 2025 the then chief of defence force, Tony Davies, told a parliamentary committee that returning the ship to sea would cost tens of millions of dollars.

RNZ reported in September 2025 that the work involved replacing obsolete systems, overhauling the engines and fitting a new ballast water treatment system, paid for from existing funding rather than new money. The ship also needed operational class certification from Lloyd's Register before sailing. It was not meant to take over Manawanui's specialist diving and survey work, but to carry out fishery patrols, border protection, research and supply tasks and to provide a presence in the Pacific.

The setback falls on a small fleet that the government has been sending further afield. New Zealand has committed to raising defence spending and has increased deployments, and its largest ship, the replenishment vessel Aotearoa, made a rare transit of the Taiwan Strait in November 2025, Reuters reported. The navy's renewal plan to 2029 focuses first on maritime drones rather than new ships, RNZ reported.

The 16-year-old Otago has a long record of mechanical trouble. Built in Melbourne under the Project Protector programme, it was delivered more than two years late after weight problems and contractor disputes that ended in an NZ$85 million settlement with BAE Systems, and engine and electrical faults disrupted its early voyages in 2010.