Vessels

NIWA operates about 30 other Maritime New Zealand-certified vessels based at Bream Bay, Auckland, Hamilton, Rotorua, Turangi, Wellington, Nelson, Greymouth, Tekapo, Christchurch, and Dunedin.

RV Tangaroa is New Zealand’s only ice strengthened and dynamically positioned deep-water research vessel.

Find out how you can have access to NIWA's research vessels to carry out marine research voyages.

While Tangaroa might be considered its flagship, NIWA’s extensive range of maritime work could not be completed without the support vessels Kaharoa and Ikatere.

Approved by the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, New Zealand was made sovereign over 1.7 million square kilometres of seafloor

The strong wind and rain that has battered Auckland this week has presented some special challenges for workers trying to paint NIWA’s flagship research vessel Tangaroa while she has been in dry dock.