Dockyard Completes Biggest Ship “Facelift”

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29178, 12 April 1960, Page 19

Dockyard Completes Biggest Ship “Facelift”

Converted by six months of skilled dockyard work into the Royal New Zealand Navy’s most modern frigate, H.M.N.Z.S. Rotoiti has left Auckland to begin overseas service, mostly on the Far East Station.

The Rotoiti began a major refit last August. She merged in January with the most complete “facelift” ever given a frigate by the dockyard, says a Navy news summary. Her armament has been made more powerful and radar extended, air conditioning has been extended into more living spaces and ventilation in general improved, and “habitability”—the Navy term for living comfort—has been affected by many changes which included the substitution of bunks for hammocks in some messes, the installation of new types of lockers, the modernisation of bathrooms and extensive use of plastic and attractive colour schemes. A major job was the recaulking of the wooden decking over the steel of her upper deck. This provides an insulation against the tropical heat which would otherwise strike through the steel into the living spaces below. More than 18,000 feet of seams were caulked by the age-old method of forcing oakum, hand spun on the shipwrights’ laps, into the seams and then sealing with hot pitch. The Rotoiti’s armament was made more effective by the removal of the multiple "pom-pom” and the substitution of two additional 40 m.m. Bofors anti-aircraft guns. Air conditioning had already been fitted in a number of living spaces. To further suit her foi tropical service it was extended to others, and air inlets modified so that a substantial section of the ship can be isolated from the outside air as a protection against gas or atomic fallout. However, the greatest changes

were made to the frigate’s living quarters. The dockyard knew that plans had been prepared in the Admiralty for the installation of a new type of aluminium bunks with inner-spring mattress which could be folded by day into comfortable settees. They obtained both the details and the bunks, and the bunks were fitted in a number of messes in the Rotoiti.

Kit lockers which formerly stood on dust catching legs are now flush fitted. The lockers themselves are a new type adopted from the Admiralty pattern but designed and built in the dockyard. Mess decks in most cases are covered with attractively patterned linoleum, and printed linen in matching covers is used for cushion covers and curtains.

The ship's bathrooms show the same attention to detail. The dockyard designed and built sets of shower cubicles, made of aluminium and faced with plastic sheeting. The decks are covered with marble chips set into latex to give a resilient, colourful and bardwearing surface. Many of the basic plans—the fitting of new armament, of guns, and bunks—originated with the Admiralty. Others came from suggestloift made within the Navy thiTdockyard. The approved ideas were handed over to the dockyard’s drawing office where plans were made to implement them. They were then translated from -paper to fact by the yard’s own tradesmen.