H.M.N.Z.S. Otago To Visit Lyttelton This Week

Press, Volume C, Issue 29479, 4 April 1961, Page 10

H.M.N.Z.S. Otago To Visit Lyttelton This Week

A waxship that contains so many innovations that she has earned Commonwealthwide attention and the title of the “super-frigate” will visit Lyttelton from April 8 to April 10. She is H.M.N.Z.S. Otago, the first of the Navy’s new, fast frigates. She has two radical innovations for a warship. Traditional hammocks have been replaced by bunks, and all the living spaces and mess decks are completely air conditioned. Each bunk has its own reading light and the tiers of two and three bunks can be folded to form settees during the day. The improved conditions are carried into other parts of the ship. The main dining space is wired for use as a cinema (complete with wide screen' and there is a ship’s laundry which washes, dries and irons. The Otago has the largest air conditioning plant ever fitted on a ship of her size and the plant can be used to heat the ship in winter. The Otago’s submarine detection equipment probes deep below the sea and sends reports back to electronic

computers which calculate range, bearing and depth of the target. The results are passed to two three-barrelled mortars which can deliver large quantities of high explosives with deadly accuracy. Anti - submarine torpedoes reinforce the underwater defences. Fire control equipment can detect a target in the air or on the sea, calculate its position and movements and direct on to it the fire of a high-speed 4.5 inch gun turret. The Otago has 13 transmitters and associated receivers ranging from medium and high frequency seta for long ranges to ultra high frequency sets for short range communications between ships of a tusk force. Three hundred and seventy feet long, and displacing 2500 tons, the Otago has a speed of more than 30 knots. She carries a complement of 220 men.