The captain and first officer of the container ship Rena have kept their jobs and are today back in the Philippines with their families for the first time in more than a year.

The Rena's former master Mauro Balomaga, 44, and navigation officer Leonil Relon, 37, were released from jail this week after serving three and a half months of the seven months jail sentences handed down in May.

The pair were charged with operating a vessel in a manner likely to cause danger, discharging a contaminant and altering ship documents in relation to the grounding of the ship on October 5 last year.

The captain and navigation officer were deported back to their home country of the Philippines on Thursday.

The length of time the men have been away from their families while kept in New Zealand on bail, and the fact the NZ Immigration Department prevented the men's wives from visiting at Christmas, was mentioned by the sentencing judge Robert Wolff in considering the length of their jail sentences.

People on bail in New Zealand are not normally denied access to their families.

The captain's lawyer Paul Mabey QC says the men's families have been supported by their employer while they have been in jail and they both have jobs to return with Mauro Balomaga being Costamare's most experienced captain.

'It's not certain what they will do or whether they will both go back to sea, but they do have work to go to,” says Paul.

Balomaga has five daughters and Relon has three children.

They were charged under the Maritime Transport Act, Resource Management Act and Crimes Act after the Rena struck Astrolabe Reef on October 5 subsquently spilling 350 tonnes of heavy fuel oil into the ocean.

The judge found the captain's obsession with making the Port of Tauranga's tidal window at 3am, resulted in navigation errors. After the collision charts were altered to cover up the reason the ship struck the reef.

The judge said the men received jail sentences because they falsified the navigation records to cover up the poor navigation and bridge communication practices that characterised the voyage. The Crimes Act offence of perverting the course of justice was the main sentencing factor.

Maritime New Zealand also charged the Rena's registered owner Daina Shipping Co under sections of the Resource Management Act, which relates to the discharge of harmful substances from ships. Daina is due to appear in court on October 5, the anniversary of the Rena grounding.