Advertisement for navy boats pulled

An advertisement seeking buyers for two recently decommissioned inshore patrol vessels has been removed from the internet at the request of the Defence Force.

Navy boats HMNZS Rotoiti and HMNZS Pukaki were listed for sale by Perth-based Global Work Boats in an online advertisement.

A Defence Force spokesman said it had ‘‘contacted the agency to ask for the removal of their advertisement’’.

A project team was investigating disposal options for the two vessels, which originally cost $36 million each. But no decision had been made and the Defence Force ‘‘has not advertised them for sale’’, he said.

Global Work Boats stated in its advertisement that the engines on Rotoiti and Pukaki had 5000-6000 hours on the clock, which would suggest they spent less than nine months at sea.

The Defence Force would not comment on that claim.

‘‘Details of the vessels’ state is commercially sensitive,’’ its spokesman said.

Global Work Boats principal Stephen Collett estimated the boats were worth $10m each and said before the advertisement was withdrawn that there had been interest.

Among the selling points were a ‘‘very extensive communications and electronics package’’ and the boats’ dual 3400 horsepower engines, which should give a top speed of 25 knots, the advert stated. Each ship also came with two rigid-hull fast rescue vessels but would have their three machineguns and some other sensitive equipment removed.

‘‘They could be used by private exploration companies, as small research ships – that sort of thing,’’ Collett said, adding that any buyer would need to be approved by the Defence Force.

It is not unprecedented for the navy to sell decommissioned boats commercially.

Dive tender ship HMNZS Manawanui was sold to Australia’s Major Projects Group in 2018 for environmental work in the Pacific.

Rotoiti and Pukaki were effectively mothballed about three years after they came into service in 2009.

The Defence Force said in October the navy had assessed them as ‘‘no longer being suited to the heavy seas typically encountered off New Zealand and further afield’’.