Cargo Ship Rena’s Future Uncertain

Cargo Vessel Rena has a cracked hull - Officials are calling this the worst maritime environmental disaster in New Zealand's history and claim it is likely to worsen before it improves Mike Hewitt/Getty

Cracks in cargo ship Rena’s hull have raised the stark possibility that it is just a question of when, not if, the vessel will break apart, say maritime experts.

Cargo ship Rena, carrying some 2000 containers, ran aground on the Astrolabe Reef in the Bay of Plenty, on 5 October 2011.

Strong gales and huge swells pushed the ship into a precarious position and caused the vessel’s hull to split last Tuesday and the oil to haemorrhage.

A salvage inspection team was sent out to the stricken ship today to carry out a safety and systems check in order to assess the viability of continuing with fuel pumping operations, said Maritime New Zealand (MNZ) in a media release.

Svitzer Salvage, a specialist company that has been appointed as salvors for the Rena, has brought in equipment from around New Zealand, Australia and further afield.

The salvors believe that Rena will inevitably break up, reported the New Zealand Herald.

Three tugs are attempting to either hold the stern of the ship on the reef and remove oil or, failing that, drag the stern to shallow water and remove the oil from there.

At this point, MNZ is confident that Rena’s fuel tanks are still intact

A second officer from Rena, who was in charge of the navigational watch, has been charged with negligence under section 65 of the Maritime Transport Act 1994 and was to appear in court this morning.

MNZ has confirmed that 88 containers are adrift – 48 are empty and another contains the toxic material ferrosilicon.

Transparency and Accountability Needed

Joe Fleetwood, Maritime Union General Secretary, was shocked on hearing that Rena had powered straight onto Astrolabe Reef at nearly full speed.

”I don’t understand why Rena was in there....that is not the usual shipping route. At sea...you have shipping lanes and that is what you take and that is what you stick to,” he said.

The whole affair raises questions of social conscience and responsibility, says Mr Fleetwood.

 He was incredulous that the largely Filipino crew from Rena had been left on the stranded ship and only taken off several days later when it had keeled over in bad weather and a Mayday call was sent out.

“If that was a New Zealand crew, the crew would have been (taken) off and there would have been an emergency crew put on that vessel,” said Mr Fleetwood, and safety precautions would have been put in place.

An ‘open coast’ shipping policy has created a situation where “unacceptable practices have become the norm in New Zealand waters -it’s a case of out of sight and out of mind,” said Mr Fleetwood.

Container ship Rena had already been pulled up for multiple deficiencies in China and Freemantle in the last few months, only to apparently be given a cursory glance when it arrived in Bluff for an inspection carried out on 28 September 2011.

“I believe the inspector went on board, never inspected the vessel, (and) asked the captain, ‘is everything okay’,” he said, adding that the Maritime Union had asked for the inspection list.

“A long hard slog”

A massive exclusion area, off limits to the public, reaching 20 kilometres out to sea extending from Mount Manganui to Matata and out to Astralobe Reef has been declared.

Clean-up teams have picked up some 50 kilos of solid waste and 5 tons of liquid waste over some 17 kilometres of coastline. Oil has been spotted as far north as Whangamata.

It’s a “long hard slog, MNZ National On Scene Commander Nick Quinn, said yesterday. “Our focus is on recovering oil from wherever we find it and we will go in day by day until this is over.”