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.

Defence minister Judith Collins said Commander Yvonne Gray, who faced a barrage of online abuse, was ‘appointed on merit, not gender’.

New Zealand’s defence minister has criticised "armchair admirals" for suggesting that a female captain’s gender was to blame for the sinking of one of the nation's naval ships. HMNZS Manawanui ran aground one nautical mile from the Samoan island of Upolu on Saturday night while surveying a reef. It later caught fire and capsized.