New Zealand's Defense Minister has clapped back at claims that the appointment of a female captain to commandeer a $61 million navy ship ultimately led to its sinking. The navy's specialist dive and hydrographic vessel,

New Zealand’s Defense Minister Judith Collins has decried what she called misogynistic online comments about the woman commander of a navy ship which ran aground, caught fire and sank off the coast of Samoa on Sunday.

A New Zealand navy ship sank one mile off the coast of Samoa on Sunday, prompting fears of an environmental and ecological disaster. The roughly $60 million ship, the HMNZS Manawanui, was conducting a hydrographic reef survey on Saturday when it ran aground near the southern coast of Upolu,