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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WATERFRONT BUSINESS In brief… NZ Maritime Pilots Assn Conference 2012 ...is being held at the Museum of City and Sea, Wellington, on November 23, 2012. The AGM will be preceded by a conference and workshops including: Navicom Dynamics and PPU's with Paul Stanley, Communications with Marian Mortensen, a Pilots presentation on PPE's, and PortsandPilots.com workshop with Warren Wood. There will be trade presentations from Cetronics Systems, MetOcean, Navicom Dynamics, PortsandPilots.com, Q-west Boat Builders, South Pacific Diesel Systems, and Vega Industries. There are also a variety of social activities and networking opportunities organized for delegates and their spouses. The conference will end in the evening with dinner at the Museum. For further information and registration details ($125 fee), please contact Steve Banks, Conference Organiser seabear@ xtra.co.nz or 029 2003388 Ship held in Wellington A wayward freight ship was detained in Wellington after a near-collision at Pencarrow on Sunday August 12. The AAL Brisbane, understood to have been carrying pulp from Melbourne, veered ''closer than it should have'' to the rocks at Pencarrow as it arrived at the harbour entrance, shortly after 2pm said Wellington harbourmaster Mike Pryce. It was detained by Maritime New Zealand when it docked at CentrePort. An investigation by Maritime NZ will look into its course and questions around its navigation equipment. There may have been issues with its equipment. The 194-metre ship is registered to Austral Asia Line, a shipping company whose head office is in Singapore, and it is owned by Columbia Shipping Management in Cyprus. It is flagged and registered to the Marshall Islands, and its New Zealand shipping agent is ISS McKay. Fishing boat fire! More than 40 firefighters attended a fire below the decks in the bow of the 1800 tonne San Nikunau Sanford fishing boat in the Viaduct on August 21. The 80m long vessel was moored near the floating pavilion when a welding spark ignited the fire about 1040. Firefighters dealt with the blaze in around an hour, which Sanford managing director Eric Barratt said was very minor and was put out almost immediately. "They came onboard more as an exercise because they hadn't dealt with this sort of thing before." He said there was no real damage to the boat. 42 Professional Skipper November/December 2012 CHINESE STEEL HALO OFFICIAL FIGURES SHOW a 125 percent increase in China's South Pacific tuna fleet in two years. Graham Southwick from Fiji Fish Marketing Ltd says, "We all worry about the sheer number of vessels, but their technology means they now have double the firepower of five years ago in terms of how many hooks they can set." Some commentators say that China is plundering the world's last great tuna stock in a bid to stake a claim to the region's resources. The jump in Chinese boats operating around the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and in international waters between New Zealand and Fiji, has been noted by the Forum Fisheries Agency who say that as of June 2012 there were 241 China- flagged vessels and 221 Taiwan-flagged vessels approved to fish. Two years ago China had only 107 boats long-line fishing for bigeye and yellowfin tuna. The "Tuna Belt" runs along the equator and supplies 57 percent of the world's tuna, and Vanuatu and the Solomons have issued more than 200 licences, each worth about $50,000 a year, to Chinese boats. Southwick said. "It is a long-term game to get a maximum number of boats in the South Pacific. It's not about making money, it's about positioning, getting as many boats into the Pacific as possible. When the time comes for quotas, and slicing up the cake, China will be able to say it has had 400 boats here." Many vessels flagged to the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Kiribati are actually owned by Chinese companies. Southwick says the Chinese boats receive about $300,000 a year as a fuel subsidy from Beijing, they were built with 0.5 percent loans to keep shipyards working, and they could not make money without the subsidies. A United States Navy carrier strike group including the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, cruiser Bunker Hill and destroyer Halsey, sailed through the north Tasman Sea in June on a mission to, "patrol and secure protected fishing areas in the southern Pacific". The fleet passed through Bass Strait, up between New Zealand and New Caledonia, and through the fishing zones of small island states. The Carl Vinson's aircraft flew more than 60 patrols. The Navy Times has reported that Oceania is important to US economic prosperity and the Carl Vinson's Captain John Steinberger said he believed that tuna patrols would be an "enduring mission" for the US Navy. While the region's main science monitor, the Secretariat for the Pacific Community, has called for a 32 percent cut in the bigeye tuna catch, Southwick says a subsidised fleet could keep fishing long after a normal commercial fleet would have had to give up. "The Chinese will fish until there is one tuna left in the ocean, and, since the Government is paying the bills, the fish won't stand a chance." He says these vessels have, "..become constant, not only are they here, there are many more on the way." Delta lady off to flying start THE REPLICA PADDLE steamer Waipa Delta, previously based in Hamilton and then in Auckland, has been relocated to Taupo and renamed the Delta, Lake Taupo. New owner Cliff Jones is preparing to use the Delta as a venue for weddings, corporate events and private parties. "We want it to be a special venue with… exclusivity." Two new bars and wooden flooring are about to be installed and Mr Jones is hoping she will be ready before Christmas. She already has ten potential bookings for weddings and birthday parties, and all weekends in March are booked. Waipa Delta in Auckland