The only specialised marine publication in Oceania that focuses on the maritime industry, from super yachts to small craft to large commercial ships, including coastal shipping, tugs, tow boats, barges, ferries, tourist, sport-fishing craft
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The first crack appears as the ship shows signs of breaking attempt to remove the wreck remains in Australia or Singapore, some weeks away at best. In a worse case scenario, if the stern section gives way, rolls over and sinks into deeper water, it will make the salvor's job even tougher, increasing the risk of serious pollution. Likewise, even if the salvors opt to blast her in half at the stress point, there remains a significant risk she will roll over and sink into deeper water. Either way, it won't be pretty and we will still have some serious mess to clean up. While the first option for Maritime NZ and the salvors will be to salvage the vessel, removing all signs of her from the reef, it should come as no surprise if the salvors apply to Maritime NZ to leave the wreck where it lies, if they haven't already. The government should resist and deny this option up front. Astrolabe Reef is one of New Zealand's most popular fishing and diving sites, and represents a hugely diverse marine environment in pristine condition. So how do we mitigate against these kinds of events and are they a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. We are an island nation where 98 percent of all goods coming into and leaving the country travel on ships at sea. Maritime accidents will continue to happen, some by a stroke of nature as man battles the elements, such as happened in the Wahine disaster 40 years ago. But most are the result of human error, either from lack of training or poor management systems. Sadly, as history will attest, with the demise of our coastal shipping fleet we are seeing more foreign ships working our coast as passing trade. As a result, we are running a greater risk of more groundings and accidents that could equally result in potential disasters. We only have to look back to the sinking of the Mikhail Lermontov in 1986 and start counting the number of incidents to realise this is not an isolated, once-in-a-lifetime incident. By now we should have an understanding of the growing risks and problems ahead for all the shipping working our coast. Clearly we need to be more vigilant of our border controls and our port state control inspections, with a greater emphasis by our Maritime NZ maritime safety inspectors on ship safety inspections. Sadly, we have seen the demanning of lights and the loss of many beacons and aids to navigation on our coast in an effort to save costs. Granted, we have also seen a greater uptake from local authorities and port companies to provide excellent navigation aids in their ports or harbours. But is this enough when we may have ships' officers of questionable training working substandard ships around our coast. As a result of this very serious lesson, we should be considering introducing systems to mitigate the growing risk of substandard ships arriving on our coast and working from our ports. This may mean the government introducing a new shipping or tonnage levy to establish a significant contingency fund as a buffer to deal with serious marine accidents, pollution or risks to our marine environment. Oil pollution levies should be increased so the reserves can be set at $5 million, not the $2 million as at present, as well as increasing existing marine safety charges to all visiting shipping to improve both land fall and coastal aids to navigation on our coast. The beneficiary of the goods traded in and out of the country should pay this government a tonnage charge or a shipping tax and New Zealand's taxpayers should not be expected to carry this. Diamantis Mano, the managing director of the parent company, Costamare Shipping Company SA, has publicly apologised to New Zealand and the people of Tauranga. No one likes to watch a ship die. The noise on the reef is bloody horrible with the ship groaning in its death throe's. A sound, some will never forget, as we respond to New Zealand's most significant maritime environmental disaster. A quick dig into the memory banks reveals a number of ships over 500 tonnes have come to grief around our coast. This list is by no means conclusive: Rena, Tauranga 2011 Oyang 70 2011 Hanjin Bombay Tauranga 2010 Spirit of Resolution Manukau 2005 Eastern Honor Whangarei 2003 Capella Voyager Whangarei 2003 Jodi F Millennium Gisborne 2002 Taiping Bluff 2002 Boral Gas Manukau 2001 Caribic Tauranga 2000 Seafresh 1 Chatham Islands Spirit of Enterprise Otago 2001 Spirit of Enterprise Manukau 2001 (a good year) Prince Tokyo Otago 1999 Pacific Princess Napier 1999 TA Explorer Nelson 1998 Spirit of Vision French Pass 1998 Don Won 529 Stewart Island 1998 Condor Ten Queen Charlotte Sound 1995 Alltrans Bluff 1995 Strait Runner Mana 1995 Don Won 513 South Canterbury 1994 Kinemaru 1986 Mikhail Lermontov 1986 Pacific Charger 1981 – Professional Skipper archives November/December 2011 Professional Skipper 35 PHOTO: NZ DEFENCE FORCE PHOTO: MARITIME NEW ZEALAND