The situation with the ship Rena has just got much worse. Newstalk ZB has just reported that a Mayday call has been received from the ship, requesting the immediate evacuation by helicopter of all the remaining crew.
We'll update this as more news comes to hand.
27 comments:
2.8 meter swells interesting link but remember the MV Rena is 7 miles further out it will be far worse at sea. Maritime NZ say precautionary measure only
http://www.port-tauranga.co.nz/Harbour-Conditions/
I am advised there has been a breach of the hull close to where the vessel grounded.
The outlook is very grim especially in the face of the heavy weather expected tonight.
Watch the recriminations (NZ's real national sport) begin.
Hey, I know! Why don't we put some oil rigs out there...no, even further out, in deeper water. Nothing can go wrong. New Zealand has procedures in place, technology at the ready, Mr Joyce, Mr Brownlee, Ms Parata told us so, so it must be so.
"Watch the recriminations (NZ's real national sport) begin."
And.......right on cue.
My comments weren't recriminations, Mooist, they were extrapolations.
Let's pretend oil spills don't happen when deep sea drilling goes wrong!
Let's just focus on this disaster in the making and learn nothing from it. Don't ask why the response was soooooo slow. Don't imagine for a second that lessons learned here could be applied elsewhere.
Don't for one second, wonder if a serious spill in deep, rough water might be even worse than this shallow water, near-to-a-harbour spill, or whether the response to such a spill would be way, way worse than what we are seeing now.
Just don't let the thought cross your mind.
Moist, I'm not surprised.
Well, I guess that means coastal shipping is buggered! Actaully, it should signal the end of all shipping in NZ waters, according to Robert's extrapolations. We'll have to fly everything in and out of the country now...
Don't get him started Gary!
Gary - you misunderstand the meaning of the word extrapolation, or at least you've misapplied it. I've not commented on coastal shipping.
Do you, or Mooist or Quintin believe that the response to the MV Rena has been acceptable?
If so, I can't help you. If not, do you, even for a brief moment, wonder about the assurances that the National Ministers have given about the Government's and the industry's ability to manage deep sea oil spills?
If you are resting easy about that, then I'm assured you are happy little hobbits in Key's white cloud, blue sky la-la land.
"Do you, or Mooist or Quintin believe that the response to the MV Rena has been acceptable?"
Roobert.. Given my limited experience of ship salvage I'm afraid I cannot answer this, so I fear I must bow to your superior knowledge, gained I expect, from many years of organic gardening.
Your colleagues in the Greens however, are not so sure that horticultural expertise has any bearing on maritime disaster, and have instead decided to listen to expert opinion.
http://blog.greens.org.nz/2011/10/11/rena-oil-spill-day-five/
An extract.
"We learned quite a bit about the logistics of the rescue effort and the complexity of the problems when a ship is in 50 metres of water at one end and on the rocks at the other end.
I appreciate your bowing, Moist von Lipwig, and i expect, your scraping too.
Let's not be silly though - this is a very bad situation and, like the Pike River disaster, will in time show that there are serious flaws in both the way shipping is manged here and the way oil spills are managed. I commentator such as myself doesn't need to be expert in the matters being discussed - if we did, your comments about politics would be worthless.
Got to give Inv2 some credit here, for his headling, 'Breaking news', clever, though it's a little macabre and insensitive.
...meant, in the way Pike River was revealed to have serious flaws in its processes.
key's throat slitting and lying about s&p show him to be as well suited to PM role as we imagined. as does his putting the non-mp for ilam in charge of chch recovery and the minister for fossil fuels and motorways in charge of this rena disaster response and the minister for downgrades in charge of the economy. key keeps his hands clean by wiping them across his throat. clever man.
WOW! That's a right on topic, insightful addition to the debate charlie.
"key keeps his hands clean by wiping them across his throat"
Classic line.
Once again with the Hobbit-hating, Robert... You extrapolated that because a ship ran aground and the response had been found wanting (which I agree with, from what I have seen), then we should be very careful about a differrent activity which could go wrong. I am saying that you do not haver to extrapolate even that far to be able to use your argument against coastal shipping.
Any gallows humour in the title of the post is entirely unintentional Robert.
But I do find it interesting how many of us land-lubbers have become instant experts in salvage of stranded ships, and containing oil spills. Personally, I'm happy to leave it to the real experts.
"Personally, I'm happy to leave it to the real experts."
Agreed.... The salvage will be best served by politicians of ALL colours keeping out of the way and letting the grown-ups get on with it.
Maybe it is a lesson from Pike River, maybe not, but thankfully at this stage there is not a cop in charge.
I have had other things to do so have not commented for a wee while.
A question has been asked, was the response acceptable?
Underlying that is the question could it have been done faster?
Those questions in turn require a further question. What do you mean by response?
In my world the response is responding to the casualty, i.e dealing with the consequences the ship parked, through navigational error on a reef, including removing if possible bunkers, dealing with bunkers escaping from the vessel and removing cargo and then the vessel from it's location.
The whys and what ifs do not figure. They are for later when the mess is tidied up. Neither does running around like chicken little shrieking the sky is falling.
Response means proper planning, accumlating competent staff and proper equipment required to do the job and then doing it.
Remember this is a large container ship hard aground on a reef 10 miles, at least from Port Tauranga. It is hard to get at.
It is surrounded by water which is unpredictable.
Consequently sitting down and thinking through the problem is an essential activity.
It is impracticable I think to place a floating boom around the vessel to limit the movement of the bunkers that escape from the vessel.
It would need to surround an area of more than 4 rugby fields in a dynamic environment where every part is moving. In calm water it might last some time but in the weather conditions being experienced now it wouldn't survive.
Removal of the bunkers from the vessel.
Almost every commercial vessel on this planet uses bunker oil as fuel. It is nasty unpleasant stuff. Almost every vessel on the plant has systems to accept bunker oil but not to discharge it.
It isn't a matter of turning a valve on the vessel to make the flow go the other way. A serious amount of engineering work is required to get the systems to work in reverse.
And it is dangerous work in adverse environments. The work was done inside 4 days which my contacts suggest was pretty well done.
You also need to remember that bunker oils need to be heated before they become fluid and able to be used as fuel.
Consequently the pipes that carry the fuel must be insulated and the and the recieving vessel needs to be have tanks that are heated as well.
Then the receving vessel needs to be almost alongside the Rena to enable the transfer of the bunkers.
This is itself hard and dangerous work and puts the receivng vessel and its crew at significant risk.
The receiving vessel is another issue. It is privately owned. It is not a case of saying can we borrow your boat for a little job? There are insurance issues to deal with as there is the probability of damage or loss. (it has been damaged already).
Then there is finding competent crew to run the vessel in difficult conditions.
In a perfect world i could produce a paper on marine casulaties but time does not permit.
What these comments show I hope is that dealing with this disaster is not going to be easy, it will be hard dangerous work, and possibly due to the nature of the casualtiy someone will be seriously injured, and worst of all for the BOP it will take time.
People will make their own minds as to whether the response was fast enough. Personally and because of the factors i have identified i think it has been. But for people brought up on a diet of 1hr TV shows it won't be.
@ Quintin - thanks for adding some informed comment to what has become an increasingly emotional debate.
PS - check your e-mail...
bOb must have constant headaches with a head so full of expert knowledge on all things.
I love how the NIMBY turns the grounding of a ship against oil exploration. I guess, as already mentioned, his Watermelon Party favour coastal shipping but this disaster is embarrassing to them so they spin spin spin
Jabba(Uzbekistanian? Armenian? Can't quite place it)is floating the idea that the Greens are responsible for the grounded and breaking-up MV Rena - ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
(Must be his Bahrainian humour coming through!)
"is floating the idea that the Greens are responsible for the grounded and breaking-up MV Rena"
good grief .. stop lying man
Robert's true colours are on display today Jabba; he's let the mask down, as Robert himself is wont to say of others.
It's interesting to see how he reacts when others stand up to him, and he can't control the agenda.
" Hey, I know! Why don't we put some oil rigs out there..."
Robert get stuffed driving a ship on to a reef is just bad seamanship. If we have oil we should take advantage of it.
I have been very clear with my posts on MV Rena they are not political this is very like Pike but thankfully know one has died.
no one
Bugger,
Some containers have fallen off the vessel.
I can't say I'm surprised.
It does make life difficult for the salvors.
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