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HMNZS TE KAHA (front) and HMNZS ENDEAVOUR conduct a Replenishment At Sea.

New Zealand Defence Force
Te Ope Kaatua O Aotearoa

Media Release

18 March 2009

TWO NAVY SHIPS VISITING WELLINGTON

This weekend Wellington will host two Royal New Zealand Navy ships at the same time.

The Navy's purpose built Fleet Replenishment Tanker, HMNZS ENDEAVOUR will berth at the Overseas Passenger Terminal at 8.00pm on Thursday 19 March and the ANZAC class Frigate HMNZS TE KAHA will berth at 0800 on Friday 20 March at Queens Wharf.

The ships are conducting an operational visit to Wellington and the Commanding Officers will be conducting official calls while they are here.

HMNZS TE KAHA will be open to the public of Wellington from 10.00am - 2.00pm on Sunday 22 March.

Commander Mat Williams, Commanding Officer and his 172 ship's company warmly invite Wellingtonians to come on board and have a tour of the ANZAC class frigate at Queens Wharf.

TE KAHA has just returned from Fleet Concentration Period (East), which is an annual fleet training exercise conducted off the New South Wales Coast for the Royal Australian Navy, Royal New Zealand Navy, Royal Australian Air Force and the Royal New Zealand Air Force The exercise focuses on developing core maritime warfare skills in a multi-threat environment. This is a key exercise for the RNZN and RNZAF to build skills and enhance interoperability with our closest ally Australia.

HMNZS ENDEAVOUR will deploy early next month in company with the Navy's other ANZAC class frigate HMNZS TE MANA to China and South East Asia. The aim of this deployment is to build on the emergent relationship with China and reinforce the NZDF commitment to the South East Asian region through participation in regional exercise activity under the Five Power Defence Arrangement and other regional bilateral and multi-lateral defence agreements.

ENDS

Currently 718 New Zealand Defence Force personnel are deployed on 14 operations, UN missions and defence exercises around the world.

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