HISTORY: SNAPSHOT

ABLE SEA CAT ‘ROTES’

A former crewmember of Lakeclass patrol vessel HMNZS ROTOITI wonders what became of their all-too-brief ship’s mascot, ‘Rotes’.

Former Leading Radio Operator Bernie ‘Duffy’ Duff recalls how they adopted a stray cat during his posting aboard ROTOITI between September 1980 and September 1981.

“One of our stokers, Chico Carmen, returned one night from a run ashore in New Plymouth with a cat under his jumper. In the morning we had a mess meeting and a whip around. The cat was named “Rotes” and welcomed into the ship’s company.”

The crew smuggled him ashore, where he was de-wormed, given a flea treatment and deemed fit to post to sea. “Kitty litter was purchased and placed in a spit-kid (a shallow mess deck waste bin) in the forward heads on a slip-proof mat.

Cat rations were purchased – I think the Leading Cook sorted it on the boat’s rations allowance. He was deemed too young to be put on the rum board.”

He remembers that AB/Sea Rotes was kept below decks until ROTOITI had sailed, and once at sea he ‘appeared’ on deck.

“You can see from the photo (taken with a Kodak Instamatic) that the skipper, Lieutenant Gary Medcalf, allowed him to sleep on watch.”

He was a great morale booster, says LRO Duff. “He rode the roughers well and I can’t remember him disgracing himself at all.”

Rotes went missing while alongside the pontoon in Auckland. “It was surmised that the dockyard was doing a purge on feral cats at that time, and he may have got caught. I suspect and truly hope that one of the married ship’s company smuggled him home as a pet for their kids. Maybe one of my ex-shipmates can shed some light on it?”

Photos, left to right: Rotes on radar watch, when not chasing the radar line around and around.

Rotes snuggles in with the Commanding Officer, LT Gary Medcalf. Note the two 7.62mm L1A1 Self Loading Rifles, used as shark rifles.

ROTOITI’s Buffer, Leading Seaman Chris Gibbons, with Rotes dressed in his rig.