~ HMNZS Waikato Leander Class Frigate Bronze Ships Boat Badge ~
The badge is an original piece from the ship and would have been mounted on one of the ships launches.
It bears the ships name and emblem of a mythical monster.
It has two screw holes to the reverse.
~ HMNZS Waikato ~
HMNZS Waikato (F55) was a Leander Batch 2TA frigate of the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN). She was one of two Leanders built for the RNZN, the other being the Batch 3 HMNZS Canterbury. These two New Zealand ships relieved British ships of the Armilla patrol during the Falklands conflict, freeing British ships for deployment.
Waikato was ordered in 1963 for the RNZN after a delay of more than six years after the order for the Type 12 frigates Otago and Taranaki, which had proved successful in New Zealand service. There was a pressing need to replace the ageing cruiser Royalist and the RNZN’s last two operational Loch-class frigates, which carried outdated sonars and anti-submarine weapons and were slow. The Navy board view was that a minimum of six frigates were required for protection of trade including strategic oil shipments to New Zealand, and the improved anti submarine Type 12 was considered ’eminently suited’ for New Zealand conditions. Additionally, Cold War tensions were high in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis with escalating trouble in South East Asia over Vietnam and Indonesia’s infiltration into Malaysia and Borneo, led the government to order a third Type 12. The actual suitability of the Leander for New Zealand was questioned by many Royal Naval officers, who regarded the Leander as a short-ranged North Atlantic anti-submarine hunter, designed to operate as part of the radar, air direction, anti submarine screen of the British aircraft carrier groups being phased out between 1967–71. Nevertheless, the Type 12 rode very well in a seaway, had excellent communications, a much better arranged operations room than the Rothesays, good margin for modernisation, and good workshops and carried 60 days worth of supplies, other than weapons and fuel.
Laid down in January 1964, Waikato was constructed by Harland and Wolff and was delivered in 1966, commissioning into the RNZN in September that year. Displacing 2,450 tons standard and 3,200 tons at full load, Waikato was 372 ft (113 m) long, had a beam of 41 ft (12 m) and a draught of 19 ft (6 m). She was fitted with two Babcock & Wilcox boilers which delivered steam to two English Electric geared steam turbines, producing 30,000 shaft horsepower (22,000 kW) to two shafts, which gave Waikato a top speed of 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph). Her range was 4,600 nautical miles (8,520 km) at 15 knots (28 km/h), and she had a complement of 18 officers and 248 sailors.
In terms of armament, Waikato was a fully armed Batch 2 Leander. With Mk 6 twin 4.5-inch guns, a Seacat GWS22 point defence missile, Limbo anti-submarine mortar and Wasp helicopter. She was identical to the Royal Navy Leanders of her group, with 965M LRAW and 177 hull and 199 Variable depth sonars, while her half sister, HMNZS Canterbury was a larger improved Leander, completed in 1971, with a more automated and remote controllable steam plant, a frigate potentially capable of updating with long range bow sonars and Seawolf missiles. HMNZS Canterbury a similar sensor and weapons to Waikato, because New Zealand could not afford the better screen displays and faster processing systems fitted to 1971/2 RN Leanders, and because cost margins of the last group of the Leanders were tight, it did not receive the more modern sonar and ECM/ESM of the last two Royal Navy Leanders. The Leanders were very expensive for New Zealand and the cost per ton, is just as high as the U.S. Navy Knox class, which were poor seaboats. Some Royal Navy Leanders eventually carried bow sonars in the 1980s with the range of power of AN/SQS-26, and all recently refitted clean bottom Leanders and Rothesays were silenced more effectively than early 1980s Type 22 frigates.
~ Condition ~
All in good order.
~ Dimensions ~
The badge is 20 cm (8 inches) tall by 14 cm (5.5 inches) wide.
#9789