Maritime New Zealand is expecting the crane barge Smit Borneo will begin removing containers from the Rena by the end of the week.
The crane barge arrived from Singapore on Monday and is now being prepared for use while berthed at the Port of Tauranga.
The Smit Borneo crane barge enters the Port of Tauranga.
A 180 tonne ‘crawler' crane currently on the barge Sea Tow 60 is being installed on the Smit Borneo before it is moved into position near Rena, grounded on Astrolabe Reef.
Removal operations remain on hold due to rough weather during the last three days.
Poor visibility on Tuesday prevented salvors from going out to the Rena, but they are expected to reboard the vessel as soon as the weather clears to resume work on installing patches in Rena's corridors to improve buoyancy.
Svitzer, the company in charge of salvage operations, is moving into the accommodation block on the Smit Borneo and once it gets into position at Astrolabe Reef, salvors will stay out on site.
So far 167 containers have been lifted from the Rena, leaving 1115 still onboard.
The Rena was carrying 1368 containers when it ran aground on October 5.
Electronic monitoring of the vessel confirms there is no significant change in the state of the ship, which remains in a fragile position on the reef.
Beach clean-up operations are continuing with teams working at Mount Maunganui, Papamoa and on Matakana Island.
Teams are targeting areas that need cleaning in anticipation of eventual wildlife release.
A shoreline clean-up assessment team is checking from Leisure Island to Omanu as there have been reports from the public of small amounts of oil surfacing there.
Wildlife teams are undertaking night operations to check on birds released after being cared for at the Wildlife Response Centre at Te Maunga.
Braemar Howells teams are checking Motiti Island for any recoverable items from washed up containers, weather permitting.
Two vessels are undertaking sonar operations for Braemar Howells to locate containers on the sea bed.
1 comment
what weather?
Posted on 07-12-2011 18:21 | By tmc
Exactly how calm does it have to be before these salvors go out to the ship. It was a bit sloppy on Monday with fog, good yesterday, better today and nothing in sight[except the Rena]. It seems to be getting to the stage of let's do the minimum in case we milk the cash cow too quickly. Fair enough when they pulled the barge over the weekend, there was a fair N.E. swell and varying Easterly winds, but 3 more days of inaction? Were they worried about not finding her in the rain, not that it was ac tually raining at sea, GPS not working maybe. Not worth going out when the superdooper big crane 'll be going out there on Friday, probably. Except that the Met Service is talking 30 knot N.E, for the weekend, and they've already said they won't be working any rougher weather than they already are, once again fair ewnough whenyou've got 20/30knots from the N or N.E. and 2m+ swells. But there's been none of that since Sunday. Ahhh, the bliss of standby money.
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to make a comment.