An advert for HMNZS Pukakai (background) and HMNZS Rotoiti (foreground), pictured on patrol in 2010, was removed from the web on Saturday.

An advertisement seeking buyers for two recently-decommissioned New Zealand navy inshore patrol vessels has been removed from the internet at the request of the Defence Force.

Navy boats HMNZS Rotoiti and HMNZS Pukaki were listed for sale by Perth-based Global Work Boats in an online advertisement.

A Defence Force spokesman said it had "contacted the agency to ask for the removal of their advertisement".

A project team was investigating disposal options for the two vessels, which originally cost $36 million each.

But no decision had been made on the method and the New Zealand Defence Force "has not advertised them for sale", he said.

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TOM PULLAR-STRECKER/STUFF Advert for NZ patrol boats described them as "a rare opportunity".

Global Work Boats stated in its advertisement that the engines on Rotoiti and Pukaki only had between 5000 and 6000 hours on the clock, which would suggest they spent less than nine months at sea.

The Defence Force would not comment on that claim.

"Details of the vessels' state is commercially sensitive," its spokesman said.

ROBERT CHARLES/STUFF The tenders on the Lake Class inshore patrol vessels are sure to impress.

Global Work Boats principal Stephen Collett estimated the boats were worth $10 million each and said before the advert was withdrawn that there had been interest.

Among the selling points to tempt boaties were a "very extensive communications and electronics package" and the boats' dual 3400 horsepower engines, which should give a top speed of 25 knots, its advert had stated.

Each ship also came with two rigid-hull fast rescue vessels, but would have their three machine guns and some other sensitive equipment removed, it said.

PATRICK HAMILTON/STUFF The decommissioned navy boats would be stripped of their machine guns, Global Work Boats' advert had said.

"They could be used by private exploration companies, as small research ships – that sort of thing," Collet said, adding that any buyer would need to be approved by the Defence Force.

It is not unprecedented for the navy to sell decommissioned boats commercially.

Dive tender ship HMNZS Manawanui was sold to Australia's Major Projects Group in 2018 for environmental work in the Pacific.

MICHAEL FIELD/STUFF HMNZS Rotoiti crew members and Ministry of Fisheries staff board a fishing vessel in Malborough Sounds in 2011 during one of the boats all-to-rare outings.

HMNZS Resolution, a Kiwi ship that started life in the US Navy tracking soviet submarines, also entered private service and later helped survey the course for the Hawaiki internet cable that began connecting New Zealand, Australia and the US in 2018.

A smaller patrol boat, HMNZS Kahu was even turned into a bach in 2011.

The apparently premature advertising of the two Lake Class inshore patrol vessels is the latest plot twist in what has been a choppy chapter for the navy.

It bought four of the vessels, each of which cost $36m, for fisheries patrol and surveillance.

But HMNZS Rotoiti and HMNZS Pukaki were effectively mothballed about three years after they came into service in 2009.

Former defence minister Gerry Brownlee said in 2016 that the 55-metre boats weren't "cutting it" in the rough waters surrounding the country.

The Defence Force said in October that the navy had assessed them as "no longer being suited to the heavy seas typically encountered off New Zealand and further afield".

Phil Goff, the former Labour defence minister who was in charge of procuring the boats, disputed Brownlee's criticisms at the time he made them.

He said Parliament's defence select committee had been told the vessels weren't at sea because the navy didn't have the skill to staff them.

It hasn't all been rough sailing.

The last of the boats to enter service, HMNZS Taupo, made headlines in 2018 when it was involved in a big drugs bust in Fiji, recovering 12 kilos of cocaine.

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