On October 5, 2011, the containership MV Rena ran aground on Astrolabe Reef off Tauranga, resulting in one of the worst maritime environmental disasters in New Zealand history. Yesterday, in a New Zealand court, the captain, Mauro Balomaga, and second officer, Leonil Relon, were … Continue reading
Tag Archives: New Zealand
Last April we posted, Slavery at Sea ? Abuse of Sailors on New Zealand Chartered Fishing Vessels. Secret papers reveal the government has allowed fishermen from poor countries to be exploited in New Zealand waters. Workers are fishing in rusting boats turned … Continue reading
Three stories this weekend of oil spills, a successful oil transfer and opportunities lost in mitigating a spill. Two barges collided on the Mississippi River on Friday upriver from New Orleans. A roughly 3,500 barrel capacity double hulled tank barge suffered damage … Continue reading
Laura Dekker’s sailboat, Guppy, now flies a New Zealand flag from her stern. Laura has struck the Dutch colors as the bureaucrats who tried and initially succeeded in stopping her solo voyage have returned to pester her and her family once more. They … Continue reading
In early October, the MV Rena, a container ship owned by the Greek shipping company Costamare Inc, ran hard aground on the Astrolabe Reef in in the Bay of Plenty off New Zealand’s North Island. When she struck the reef, the Rena was … Continue reading
The clean-up continues on the MV Rena which ran hard aground on Astrolabe Reef near Tauranga, New Zealand on October 5, 2011. The remaining oil has been pumped off and efforts are beginning to remove the container cargo from the stricken ship. Roughly forty containers have been … Continue reading
The Liberian flagged container ship, MV Rena, which ran aground on the Astrolabe Reef off Tauranga, New Zealand last week is continuing to suffer structural cracking and is continuing to spill bunker oil and losing containers overboard. Several beaches on the … Continue reading
Bad weather is adding to an already bad situation as salvage and clean up crews struggle to staunch the flow of oil from the container ship, MV Rena, which has been grounded on Astrolabe Reef in New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty near Tauranga for … Continue reading
Depending on what one reads, the oil spill associated with the grounding of the MV Rena on Astrolabe Reef off Tauranga, New Zealand is either a “small leak” or a “looming environmental disaster.” Conceivably, depending on the integrity of the ship’s hull, both … Continue reading
The Liberian flagged container ship, MV Rena, ran aground on the Astrolabe Reef off Tauranga, New Zealand yesterday, flooding two cargo holds. The ship is loaded with approximately 2,100 containers and has around 1,700 tonnes of heavy fuel. There has been no spillage of … Continue reading
I remember when America’s Cup racing was fairly tame – beautiful 12M yachts gliding in light air in the waters of Rhode Island Sound. Times have indeed changed. The new AC45 wing-sailed catamarans recently underwent two weeks of testing in Auckland, New Zealand. … Continue reading
A disturbing report from New Zealand on abusive conditions for seamen aboard chartered fishing vessels in New Zealand waters. Slavery at sea exposed Alerted to terrible conditions on foreign fishing vessels after nearly 30 people lost their lives, Michael Field began asking questions. … Continue reading
This Sunday a grand of fleet of miniature ships will sail the lake at East Tamaki, a suburb of Auckland, New Zealand. The event is being hosted by Task Force 48, a group of radio-controlled model ship enthusiasts. Model boats battle The 1:48 scale … Continue reading
The calendar says that Spring is here on the banks of the Hudson River, but it is nevertheless snowing outside. On mornings like this it is good to be reminded of warm seas and white sails. The good folks on the Soren Larsen … Continue reading
Joan Druett’s new book, Tupaia – Captain Cook’s Polynesian Navigator, fills an important blank space in the history, as well as the legend, of Captain Cook. On his first voyage to the Pacific in HMS Endeavour, during a stop in … Continue reading
Update: While originally reported that two crew members were knocked overboard during “a lifeboat training exercise,” it is now being reported that the sailors were performing lifeboat maintenance. The commenter (below) reports that both men were wearing safety harnesses which … Continue reading
Three boys had attempted to row the sixty miles between two small Pacific islands. Instead they became lost at sea and drifted for fifty days across nearly 1,000 miles of ocean in a small aluminum dinghy, surviving on raw seagull and … Continue reading
Cruise ship operators would prefer that their passengers exist in a hermetically sealed bubble, where they can enjoy the sea without ever having to be exposed to it; where their passengers can look up occasionally from drinking, dining and spending money in the onboard … Continue reading
We recently posted about the world’s oldest champagne found on the Baltic seabed. While not as old, yet equally historic, a case of Shackleton’s Whisky has recently gone on display at the the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch on New Zealand’s South … Continue reading
Twenty five years ago this week, French government agents attached limpit mines to the hull of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, in Auckland harbor in New Zealand to stop the ship from protesting French nuclear testing in Moruroa. The exploding mines sank the Rainbow Warrior, killing Fernando Pereira, … Continue reading