Cat laps it up as rescuers fret

By SCOTT MacLEOD

Time is running out for New Plymouth port staff to arrange a mid-ocean rescue for their cat, bound for Korea on a methanol tanker.

Colin's, as the cat is known around the Port Taranaki tanker terminal, has spent the past two weeks on the ship Tomiwaka, due to reach the Korean port of Yeosu on Sunday.

Staff fear she will go ashore and they will face quarantine requirements and paperwork to bring her back.

With five days left to work out a rescue plan, shipping brokers were being asked yesterday to arrange a rendezvous with a New Zealand-bound ship.

It was proving difficult. The tanker terminal duty superintendent, Chris Jenkins, said ships were too far away from the Tomiwaka and "questions would be asked" if they got behind schedule for a cat.

The best option was a ship called Asuka Road, due in a port near Yeosu before sailing to New Plymouth.

The Tomiwaka's Korean skipper, Chang Seok-Mo, sent a garbled e-mail to Port Taranaki workers explaining how Colin's got on board.

"Currently our second engineer has managed the cat," the e-mail said.

The engineer said the cat had followed him at the port, crying.

"He supposed the reason of crying may be hungry. Therefore, he brought the cat on board to give some food and intended to land ashore again prior to sailing but he forgot it due to sleeping."

In a faxed message from somewhere north of Papua New Guinea yesterday, Captain Chang said Colin's had been seasick for two days but was now "healthy and well".

"She's having a most good time in our second engineer's cabin, sleeping on the sofa and sometimes wandering around inside the bridge and on the bridge deck."

The cat is dining on salmon, beef and cookies.

Colin's - so named because she was originally adopted by a port employee called Colin - has lived at the tanker terminal for nine years.

A shipping manager at the Hookers firm that is acting for the Tomiwaka, Larry Stewart, said last night that a mid-ocean transfer was looking increasingly unlikely.

Mr Stewart said it was dangerous to have two big ships packed with methanol parked so close in mid-ocean, and "the cat could get squashed in between".

Colin's would probably land in Korea and be returned by ship or plane.

There could be quarantine problems in New Zealand, but "we may be able to circumvent that".

Mr Jenkins said Colin's had never travelled overseas before, although she used to jump on coastal vessels for a feed.

A worker once spotted her sniffing around a nearby tavern and put her in a taxi back to the terminal.

"She's a pretty cat, and a bit of a character."