The barge Sea Tow 60 is heading out to the Astrolabe Reef this morning with cranes onboard to begin lifting containers from the Rena.

Maritime New Zealand says it is expected to take at least a day to get the barge into position and ready to start the container removal process.

They held sea trials last week to see if the process will work.

Sea Tow's barge No 60, under tow. Photo: Maritime New Zealand.

Three salvors remained onboard Rena overnight to continue stripping remnants of oil from port five tank and extracting remaining oil from starboard five tank.
Meanwhile, a second, larger barge is on its way to Tauranga.

The barge Smit Borneo is under tow by the Swizter ocean towing tug, Singapore and is expected early December.

The Singapore is one of the world's most powerful ocean towing tugs and is built for towing large objects like oil rigs, barges, and ships across oceans.

Its large onboard tanks provide fuel for 45 days towing at full power.

In April this year the Singapore was involved in the rescue of thousands of rock hopper penguins endangered by oil from the bulk carrier Oliva that broke up on Nightingale Island, Tristan da Cunha. Tristan da Cunha is a speck of land in the middle of the South Atlantic.

The Singapore took supplies, a container of penguin food and penguin rescue personnel from Cape Town to Tristan De Cunha.

The Rockhopper penguins are found only on those remote islands.

The ocean towing tug Singapore and barge Smit Borneo depart Singapore for New Zealand. Photo: Marc Biemans.

The shifting of Rena salvage operations from removing fuel to removing cargo is unlikely to result in any immediate changes in the exclusion zone around the wreck, says Bay of Plenty regional harbour master Carl Magazinovic.

From a navigational safety point of view the more dangerous phase of the operation is about to begin with a real possibility more containers will fall into the water.

On October 11, 88 containers were washed into the sea off the Rena, with 56 of them still unaccounted for.

'We'll wait and see what happens with this and we'll see how it goes.”

The exclusion zone was set in the early days of the operation when there was oil in the water, containers overboard, and a large number of vessels moving to and from the wreck.

The boundaries have been adjusted twice since.

The zone boundaries are regularly reviewed, but are remaining as is, primarily for navigation safety – and to avoid confusing boaties with constant changes.

Most shoreline clean-up volunteers are having today and tomorrow as well-earned rest days. There is one volunteer clean-up event today at Maketu.
There are still shoreline clean-up activities continuing at Mount Maunganui, Papamoa, Maketu and Rabbit Island today.