In early December the navy's new offshore patrol vessels (OPVs) HMNZS Otago and Wellington had their first foray in to New Zealand's southern ocean, where they will spend a good deal of their working lives.
The navy's four new inshore patrol vessels (IPVs) have been successfully patrolling within the inshore area for the past year and now do about 10 to 12 boardings a week.
The OPVs will go further, having been designed to patrol fisheries beyond 12 nautical miles off New Zealand's coast.
All six ships will work with and on behalf of multiple government agencies, including Customs, Biosecurity, MFaT, MAF and Maritime NZ, who will vie for the ships' time through a national maritime co-ordination centre in Wellington.
Two of the main likely users of the ships will be the Department of Conservation and Ministry of Fisheries, staff.
On board Wellington were two Fisheries staff, field operations training development unit manager Ian Henderson, of Dunedin, and manager of maritime planning and forensics, Gary Orr, of Wellington. The men were there to assess the capability of the ships for official requirements.
Although the plan to board two fishing vessels in the area was foiled when Otago had to return to Auckland and the Governor-General was transferred to Wellington, which was then diverted to complete tasks with the dignitary, Mr Orr said from what he had seen, it was clear the ship was going to be a major asset.
The main benefit was its ability to patrol the deep seas - a capacity which had not previously been available.
Boardings were as much about changing behaviour as checking for compliance, and so far there was a lot of good feedback from the fishing industry about the IPVs' work, he said.
"The level of professionalism of the IPV crews is extremely good and we want to do the same with the OPVs."
The work the OPVs would be doing would be more challenging because of the deep sea environment, but the crews seemed to be ready for it.
Seas were larger, fishing vessels were bigger, they were operating at much bigger distances and would have to deal with not only fishing vessels, but also factory processing vessels.
Having a large grey ship sidling up to them and sending out crews to board them was going to be something new for deep sea operators, but was largely welcomed by operators who wanted a level playing field, Mr Orr said.
"The deep sea has been left to its own devices for a long time."
Naval crews could actually make boardings themselves, with the written approval of Fisheries staff, as all commanding officers (COs) of naval ships were also qualified fisheries officers and had the power to delegate that authority to junior members of the crew, who might board fishing vessels.
Fisheries was too complex a field to expect the navy to do the whole role, but with what he had seen, he had confidence in their capability to do what was required at sea, Mr Orr said.
"These crews know this is their business and these vessels are ideal for this work. It just feels seamless.
"This gives all these agencies a reach we never had. They are a whole other set of ears and eyes out on the water and can feed information back to us. It is a meaningful role and these guys [the navy] are passionate about it."
Certainly, the OPV crews were keen to get to work and having them available was like "Christmas"for many different agencies.
"It's a long-term investment for an even longer-term gain."
Department of Conservation staff concurred.
"These vessels are going to change our management of the islands," Doc outlying islands' programme manager Pete McClelland said.
Doc had traditionally had great difficulty getting materials to the Subantarctic islands, and usually it came at either a great cost or what felt like some inconvenience to naval warships available to take time out and head to the islands for a week.
"The [OPVs] have given us a whole new range of options."
For the first time, on this trip, Doc workers felt like they were working with the navy, rather than tagging along, Mr McClelland said.
Purpose-built as patrol ships, the OPVs were designed to be more practical, comfortable and accommodating to the needs of agencies like Doc, and they were.
"They're not a warship tasked with lugging boardwalk across. The Zodiacs were brilliant, we could unload a lot of people and gear quickly and with relative ease.
"They are here to assist us, and it does have that feeling right through the ranks."
Like Mr Orr he noted Doc staff did not feel as though they were impeding navy crews and that everyone on the OPVs, from the CO down, was ready and willing to help.
Mr Orr said he was looking forward to the next phase now, when the OPVs would visit the Ross Sea and Subantarctic islands again in February.
