Rena bends at its cracks

The cracks on Rena's port and starboard sides appear to be worsening as a 4m swell continues to buffet the 236m container ship grounded on the Astrolabe Reef.

Maritime New Zealand salvage unit manager Andrew Berry says a bend has formed in the ship stemming from the cracks in its hull.


Rena resting on the Astrolabe Reef today. Photo: MNZ.

The bend places the ship's bow on a leftward orientation.

A team of four salvors is aboard the Rena, but they are to leave the vessel before nightfall owing to safety concerns.

The ship has a 21 degree list.

No oil pumping could be conducted on the ship today as the conditions were too rough for the Awanuia barge to get alongside to receive the fuel.

Debunking the ship is the salvors' priority and on Thursday morning a team will board Rena to reassess the damage to the ship and continue preparations for the resumption of pumping.

Svitzer is the appointed salvage company and its salvage master, Captain Drew Shannon, says once the Awanuia and the Rena are reattached for pumping they will not be starting from square one.

Their processes involve setting up a system and then proving it, so that they can then improve it.

Since it is the same system as was used on Monday when 90 tonnes of oil was pumped from Rena's fuel tanks, Drew says they will be starting pumping from a more advanced stage – closer to the ‘improving' step.

The improvement is in the speed of pumping.

There is about 1300 tonnes of heavy fuel oil still aboard Rena, with 1000 tonnes of this in fuel tanks in the ship's stern and about 300 tonnes in a tank near where the cracks are.

Photos taken of the Rena today: MNZ.

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5 comments

Must be Time ......

Posted on 19-10-2011 19:57 | By Tony

We started asking designer to include a system that allows simply unloading of bunker oil ect from ships that are wreaked there must be a way surly its got to be easier then going to the Moon ?


GUNNA BLOW BRO

Posted on 19-10-2011 20:10 | By WARTS N ALL

Well 'GUNNA BOW BRO' I mean, it is going to go west, it is a floater for sure, looks to be 150-200 containers on the bow so just a matter of time on that one, looks to be twice as many as the last dump of containers of it for sure.


In Case of Emergency Break Glass

Posted on 20-10-2011 09:01 | By bigted

Why do these ships not have emergency hardware/systems in place for these events? Perhaps the mighty $$ ?


Good idea big ted

Posted on 20-10-2011 18:03 | By pomfart

Yeh, all ships should carry "hardware" in case they run aground because it happens every day. I'd like to see aeroplanes have parachutes for all passengers too. Or maybe emergency pods. Everything comes down to the $ you fool. It's called risk. I'm off out now wrapped in bubble wrap just in case I fall down.


Engineer Problem Out

Posted on 25-10-2011 19:23 | By Mr H

yes you can Engineer a lot of problems out of problem design that is far cheaper then a simple clean up But you unable to wonder for what go;s through a fools mine to take a simple short cut to save a buck. What a wake up call to us all here in New Zealand Cheers Mr H .


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