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SUDDEN END RENA SHORTCUTS LED TO BY KEITH INGRAM, PHOTOS MARITIME NZ Caption The master was unaware of the course the 47,209 ton ship was on, or that he was heading into danger. He was walking back to plot the ship's position when the ship grounded doing 17.8 knots and coming to an unexpected stop within 120m of the first point of impact some 50m from the top of the awash rock at 0214. The latest storm batters the wreck T he Transport Accident Investigation Commission's (TAIC) interim report into the Rena disaster reveals that passage plans for the ship were repeatedly changed by the watchkeepers on the bridge during the passage from Napier to Tauranga on October 4 and 5 last year. The investigator in charge says there was no evidence to suggest that the crew were drinking or celebrating the master's birthday as rumours suggested. In fact the ship had deviated from her passage plan on more than one occasion during the voyage because the officers were under pressure to be at the Tauranga pilot station before 0300 when the window for entry on that tide would have closed. This meant there was a successive chain of deviations from the passage plan by the chief officer, and second and third mates, when in charge of the watch during the voyage, suggesting the Rena may have tracked much closer to the shore than would normally have been prudent. The planned course was altered immediately on departure from Napier, tracking less than half the distance closer to the Mahia Peninsula than prescribed on the passage plan. This was repeated again on rounding East Cape, and again on clearing White Island and the approaches to Tauranga, to track well inside the approved passage plan. With light northerlies, the sea was calm with a 2m swell reducing. The report identifies that no consideration was made for the northerly tide set and the ship's course was not regularly monitored on the plot, so the effects of any tidal drift were not picked up, thereby alerting the officer of the watch or master that they were standing into danger. The ship was heading directly for the reef when the radar picked up the awash rock at the top of the reef just nine minutes before the grounding. 56 Professional Skipper May/June 2012 By daybreak as the Bay of Plenty awoke to find this blot on the horizon, waterfront opinion was rife with scuttlebutt merchants feasting on the event as it was being revealed. It is said that the first off the ship at daylight were some ladies of the night from Napier. Now we know this type of boat girl activity is not new and is not uncommon on the coastal trade meaning there could well be some truth to the rumour. But why were the public and local commercial operators' constructive suggestions ignored when the majority knew this coast better than most officials and were suggesting some excellent options for assistance in the critical first few days while the weather remained calm. • Why was the captain not allowed to shift all the fuel into the aft and high tanks? The ship was still fully operational in a mechanical sense. • Could he have maintained power to burn fuel? Yes. • Was the ship capable of pumping fuel around and off the ship in the first four days? Yes. • Why was the offer to run the three local vehicular barges, which could have carried two truck and trailer tanker units each to offload oil not taken up? • six rigs at say 40 ton capacity x two trips per day x four days = 960 ton of heavy black fuel oil. Even if it was only 700 ton, it was a hunk of the total of 1733 Only the bow section remains visible