A 60-year-old decommissioned fishing trawler has been sunk off the Hawke's Bay coast to become an artificial reef.
It was the culmination of three years of planning and volunteer work.
Over 800 hours of work and more than $200,000 went into stripping the 23-meter steel hulled boat of contaminants, with crews working to strict international standards.
The wreck will act as a safe refuge and breeding ground for fish, crayfish and other biodiversity.
Chairman of the Twofold Bay Charitable Trust John Stewart was blown away by the community support.
"While working on the boat people walking past would always stop and ask about the project and at times donate to the efforts too," Stewart said.
"History will be made."
The boat was sunk to a depth of 17 meters.
"It's going to be surrounded by reef cones, up to 50 reef cones that it's going to enhance the marine environment and provide some protection for the vessel from adverse weather."
"Eleven cubic meters of concrete has gone in as ballast in the hull along with five pallet loads of ceramic tiles that have been placed hand by hand in the hull for a future haven for crayfish."
Twofold Bay was towed from its Napier mooring site yesterday morning to its final destination six kilometres off the Napier shore.
It was a particularly moving moment for iwi representative Sandra Mauger, who called a karanga from the rocks of Perfume Point.
"It means the world to me because my drive has been about for the rangatahi of all people, of Hawke's Bay and broader, that they've got somewhere to dive on at home in our own rohe moana," Mauger said.
Many boaties took to the water to watch the old girl go down.
Among those looking on was Debra Probyn, widow of the late Kevin Probyn, the original boat owner who brought it from Australia to New Zealand in 1967.
She brought with her a book full of her late husband's adventures on the Twofold Bay.
"Well to me it's emotional," she said.
"I think Kevin would be proud, the fact that it's underwater rather than melted down as steel, being made into god knows what, it now lives out underwater, it's nice to think of."
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