The curse of the Austro Carina continues.
On September 24 last year, the 25-metre-long, 150-tonne fishing trawler hit rocks, tearing a hole in the hull, near Shell Bay, on the south-eastern side of of Banks Peninsula/Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū.
Four crew members were winched to safety by helicopter as the vessel teetered on rocks, amid icy water, with cliffs looming above.
While owner Pegasus Fishing worked with insurers on a salvage plan, large swells broke up the vessel.
In October, Canterbury’s regional council, ECan, confirmed 10,000 litres of diesel had leaked from the grounded ship. It wasn’t known if 400 litres of hydraulic oil had leaked from the engine room.
On Tuesday of this week, the vessel’s bad run of luck continued, as it caught fire during the salvage operation.
“The cause was gas cutting and was contained and extinguished quickly [by the salvage crew],” ECan’s coastal response and readiness lead Emma Parr says.
“All five people working as part of the salvage team were safe and remained on site until the fire was out.”
Parr adds: “Removing the vessel will ensure there is no further damage to the environment from the release of trace metals, or physical damage caused by scouring from the wreck itself.”
Contractors Aero Marine Salvage are using heavy machinery, including gas-cutting equipment, to cut up the wreck. The pieces will then be taken away for recycling and disposal.
Vessel owner Pegasus Fishing couldn’t be reached for comment yesterday.
Parr, of ECan, says there has been minimal immediate and ongoing harm from hydrocarbons released from the vessel.
Department of Conservation Mahaanui operations manager Andy Thompson says as far as he’s aware the vessel’s grounding has had minimal impact on local native wildlife.
“It’s too early to say what, if anything, the recent fire on the ship will mean. We understand it was extinguished quickly and smoke was seen to disperse well, so it’s unlikely to have impacted wildlife.
He adds: “We have good baseline data on the state of the marine environment in the area.”
In the weeks after the grounding, departmental (DoC) staff worked with ECan and iwi to monitor contaminants leaking from the vessel. They also helped collect debris from the tidal zone in the weeks after the grounding, and searched for affected wildlife. A DoC boat went to the site several times.
“As a precaution, we attempted to catch the two hoiho/yellow-eyed penguins known to live in Shell Bay in early October,” Thompson says.
“This was done purely as a precaution before we knew what impacts there would be on native wildlife.
“We were only able to catch one, which was sent briefly to a penguin rehabilitation centre before being released back into the wild after it became clear there were minimal impacts on wildlife.”
Parr, of ECan, says regional council staff will assess the area once the wreck is removed, and monitor the environmental impacts.
University of Otago Emeritus Professor Liz Slooten, a zoologist, says oil is known to cause health effects on marine mammals and sea birds.
“I’d be very interested to know what anybody has done to collect information on this, and to actually monitor whether there were any impacts on marine life.”
During her regular summer research on dolphins around Banks Peninsula, Hector’s dolphins/upokohue were slow to come into shore.
“Normally, by mid-November, certainly by mid-December, there are good numbers of dolphins very close to shore and inside Akaroa Harbour, and those numbers were well down.
“Now we don’t know whether that’s due to temperature, food availability, whether the ship grounding has anything to do with that, directly or indirectly, but I am not aware of any detailed information having been gathered on the impacts on wildlife.
“I would encourage organisations like DoC and ECan and Maritime NZ and whoever else has been collecting information, to get that information out there into the public arena as soon as possible.”
Maritime NZ’s general manager of regulatory operations, south, John Drury, says its investigation is ongoing.
The Transport Accident Investigation Commission is also conducting an inquiry.
“TAIC’s investigators have made good progress with their collection and analysis of the evidence,” senior communications advisor Simon Pleasants says. “Later this year, the commission will consult on a draft report and a final report will follow.”
A TAIC protection order on the Austro Carina prevents people – other than those with authorisation – from entering or accessing the wreckage, so evidence can be preserved.
Pleasants confirms the order is still in place.
Slooten, of University of Otago, was surprised a vessel the size of the Austro Carina was trawling so close to shore.
Recreational fishers have raised concerns about fishing vessels hugging the Canterbury coast. Timaru Fishing Co-op president Nathan Hines told Stuff last year commercial trawlers venturing so close to shore wasn’t illegal “but it’s not morally correct”.
In September last year, Fisheries New Zealand’s acting director of fisheries management Allen Frazer said before the Austro Carina became grounded it had been trawling in an area with restrictions on the type of trawl gear used.
Fisheries officers spoke to Pegasus Fishing after the grounding, Frazer said, and “there is no evidence to suggest the vessel was using unpermitted trawl gear”.
Yesterday, Fire and Emergency New Zealand confirmed it was notified by ECan of the Austro Carina fire but wasn’t required to respond.
Its anonymised statement said: “This incident is a reminder to anyone carrying out hot works or anything that can generate a spark to take precautions to reduce the likelihood of sparks causing a fire, and to have water or fire extinguishers available.”
