WORK has already started on addressing a number of concerns arising from the 21 June grounding of Interisland Line’s rail/ropax Aratere during a night-time sailing from Picton.
Marlborough District Council’s environment and planning committee late last week heard from harbour master Jake Oliver, whose principal concern was the lack of clarity of leadership of the emergency response.
The incident is still under official investigation by KiwiRail, the Transport Accident Commission and Maritime New Zealand but Capt Oliver said immediate lessons could be learned.
While police initially took control, they then handed that over – but to whom was unclear: was it the Council, the harbour master, MNZ, Coastguard, Civil Defence, each of which potentially had jurisdictional involvement.
Capt Oliver said it was lucky the ship grounded where it did. “It was a very fortuitous location they chose; a soft sediment beach, the rocks are further away, they did it in 4 knots of wind, and they did it pretty much on high water,” he said. The cause has tentatively been attributed to a steering/autopilot failure.
Neither the harbour master’s office nor the council were fully equipped to deal alone with such an incident, with the burden exacerbated by the return to normal operations and running of the harbour, whilst the ongoing clean-up both of equipment and processing of incident documentation needed to continue.
Other issues identified included “vulnerability” in communications due to a reliance on mobile phones, the need for a fatigue management plan and policy to guide teams during a response, a requirement for upskilling staff, the acquisition of drone operating skills, upgrades to the navigation warning system and marine emergency manual.
“The nature of the business we’re in, in shipping, is there is always going to be incidents,” Capt Oliver told the council committee.
Coverage of the council meeting and harbour master’s report was provided by Maia Hart of the LDR (local body journalism initiative) and published by Stuff.
