Pacific Forum patrol vessel
The Pacific class (also known as the Pacific Forum classToppan & Walsh, ''World Navies Today: Other Asia-Pacific Navies'' and the ASI 315 class) is a class of 22 patrol boats built by Australia and donated to twelve South Pacific countries. Th ...
sister ship
A sister ship is a ship of the same class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They often share a ...
s she was built in Australia. After the
United Nations Convention on the Laws of the Seas
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea Treaty, is an international agreement that establishes a legal framework for all marine and maritime activities. , 167 c ...
extended maritime nations' exclusive economic zones to Australia agreed to give its smaller neighbours in the Pacific Forum patrol vessels of their own, so they could police their own sovereignty. ''Nafanua'' is the ship Australia gave to Samoa.
Design
''Nafanua'', and her sister ships, were designed to use
commercial off-the-shelf
Commercial off-the-shelf or commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) products are packaged or canned (ready-made) hardware or software, which are adapted aftermarket to the needs of the purchasing organization, rather than the commissioning of ...
components, not cutting edge, military-grade equipment, so that they would be easier to maintain in small, isolated shipyards.
Operational history
In 2008 Ombudsman
Maiava Iulai Toma
Maiava Iulai Toma is a Samoan diplomat and civil servant. He served as Samoa's Ombudsman from 1994 — 2020.
Maiava was born in Samoa and educated in Hamilton, New Zealand. While later serving as Ombudsman he completed a Bachelor of Laws at the ...
chaired a commission of inquiry into the smuggling of weapons from American Samoa aboard the ''Nafanua''. The inquiry found police commissioner Papalii Lorenese Neru and the ''Nafanuas captain in breach of duty and recommended a criminal investigation, but the latter recommendation was ignored by the government.
In September 2014 ''Nafanua'' rescued four fishermen from American Samoa, whose vessel had broken down, who were found adrift 185 miles south of Apia.
In October 2014 the government agreed for ''Nafanua'' to patrol neighbouring Cook Islands's waters, because their patrol vessel, , was undergoing a major refit in Australia.Royal Australian Navy sailors visited ''Nafanua'' in June 2018 to provide technical assistance.
''Nafanua'' began its final journey to Australia, to be recycled, on 13 June 2019. Her crew will be trained to use her Guardian-class replacement, ''Nafanua II''.
Replacement
Australia started building a class of replacements for the original Pacific Forum patrol vessels, in 2017. ''Nafanua'' replacement will be named .