JUST WEEKS after entering service WMS Group’s 98-metre Manahau was driven aground by strong winds on Saturday night (31 August) and remains ashore at Carters Beach on the South Island West Coast.
The flat-bottomed vessel, acquired by WMS from Filipino owners and converted for NZ service in Batam, arrived at Nelson 22 July (DCN 23 July) to undergo final licensing and preparation for work shipping mineral sands for WMS subsidiary from West Coast Bulk Logistics from shallow-draught ports Greymouth and Westport to bulkers anchored in Buller Bay.
Manahau is said to have been sailing off the coast for up to a week awaiting conditions to moderate, before it grounded around midnight with 11 people on board. No injuries or pollution has been reported, with Maritime New Zealand saying today its personnel are now in Westport to support recovery work.
“The crew remain on the vessel and are safe. The barge is intact, no items have been lost, and there are no leaks. There was no cargo on-board at the time,” MNZ said. “Contractors managed by the operator, will be on site again today, to continue work with the vessel.
“The operator is responsible for the development of the plan around the vessel. MNZ is leading the government response collaboratively with the local and regional authorities to ensure any plans are safe.
“The safety of people, property and environment is paramount. Planning is ongoing around bringing a specialist tug vessel down from Taranaki to support a potential re-float later this week.”
MNZ said it wanted to stress the need for people to stay away from the vessel: “It is an operational area, and is highly dangerous.”
The motorised barge project has prompted doubts from the outset, with some industry professionals claiming it is underpowered and unsuited to the harsh weather of the West Coast. Questions have also been raised about Manahau’s foreign (Nuie) registry and WMS’s employment of an Indonesian crew unfamiliar with NZ conditions.
Maritime Union of New Zealand national secretary Carl Findlay said while the cause of the grounding had yet to be confirmed the difficult local conditions at Westport including recent poor weather would be obvious issues to consider. The West Coast was “a notoriously treacherous maritime environment”, he said. Vessels such as Manahau should be crewed by experienced NZ seafarers.
He said the operators of Manahau had benefited from Government funding for the vessel and it was “extremely disappointing to see this go towards a vessel operating in New Zealand waters that was neither NZ flagged nor crewed.
“In the last several years, we saw an upsurge in NZ crewed coastal shipping, but this is now going backwards with the loss of coastal shipping services, or in this case, failing to provide jobs for skilled local crews,” Mr Findlay said.
As the matter is under investigation, MNZ said it was not in a position to talk about the events leading up to the grounding.
