Tauranga harbourmaster Jennifer Roberts will be looking at evidence to ticket a ship reported to have breached the Rena exclusion zone in the next couple of days.
The container ship Buxstar's AIS track will be checked to see if it crossed the two nautical mile - or 3.7km - boundary around the Astrolabe Reef on its way into the Port of Tauranga early on Wednesday, says Bay of Plenty Regional Council deputy CEO Eddie Grogan today.
The cargo ship Buxstar. Shipspotting.com.
TV3 reported the possible breach of the zone last night, in an interview with Marico Marine owner John Riding, who is calling for the establishment of commercial sea lanes around the New Zealand coast to prevent ships taking what he says are dangerous short cuts.
The Buxstar, a 40,465 GRT Liberian registered containership on charter to Mediterranean Shipping Company, arrived at the Port of Tauranga from Napier at 2.49am Wednesday, and departed for Auckland at 2.04pm.
The Buxstar was on the same route for the same charter company as the Rena which struck Astrolabe Reef in the early hours of October 5, 2011, also on route from Napier to Tauranga on MSC charter.
'We will check the tracking system and then we will make decisions about whether to issue an infringement notice or not,” says Eddie.
'That will be in the next couple of days.”
The fine is insignificant compared with the normal charges commercial ships pay with each port call.
The 259metre long Buxstar pays the Port of Tauranga Ltd about $44,540 just to enter port and stay alongside for a day. In addition there is a $1500 per hour charge for the hire of the electrically powered container cranes and handling charges for each container.
The 30,000 tonne tanker, Panama registered STX Ace 11, which passed 0.7 nautical miles off Astrolabe Reef on November 22, was fined $200 which was added to its port bill of about $34,360.
The stark contrast between the fines set for recreational boating infringements being levied against commercial shipping, has been brought into focus by the Rena, says Eddie.
The fines are set in the regional council's navigation safety bylaw and cannot be changed until the next review in 2015, which will involve a public submissions and consultation process.
'We are starting to do some work around that.”
There have been 85 breaches of the Rena exclusion zone so far this year and a total of 11 infringement notices served to pay a fine.
5 comments
Where is the incentive to do the right thing.
Posted on 19-12-2013 11:53 | By Surfwatch
With a fine of $200, its no wonder the shipping companies dont care about doing the right thing. It must cost more that that just to receive a complaint or however they find out about the breach. Urgent change to at least $5,000 should take place and the fines should go to a fund for cleanups around the country. This is obviously an urgent priority, before another accident and mega millions go down the drain.
Wet bus ticket anyone?
Posted on 19-12-2013 13:21 | By dgk
With the fine being far less than just one hour of crane hire, I'm not surprised that some ships will breach the Rena Zone.
The Rena
Posted on 19-12-2013 13:33 | By Fonzie
exclusion zone is made as a butt covering exercise in case of a problem It is not monitored by the council and they would not have known of the breach if it wasnt reported privately The fine of 200 dollars is a sick joke and shows how seriously they regard it
$200 ? WOW
Posted on 19-12-2013 14:32 | By YOGI BEAR
Cutting the corner would save that much in fuel and time and some, so who would care about a $200 fine. Worse the time taken by the raft of officials to think about it would result in a huge bill way in excess of the $200 fine collected, yet another cost to ratepayers ....
Fine by the ton
Posted on 19-12-2013 18:32 | By Johnney
Simple solution is to charge a $1 per tonne if found guilty. that would mean a large ship like this would be fined around $40,000. maybe the skipper will think twice about taking shortcuts.
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