Container set to be recovered from Tauranga Harbour

By TRUDIE McCONNOCHIE

An empty 12m shipping container will be hauled from the Tauranga Harbour seabed today, the last to be recovered after heavy winds blew 17 off a ship.

Winds peaking at 124km/h had blown the containers off the Russian ship Mekhanik Moldovanov on Friday night, and the Port of Tauranga was subsequently closed during the salvage operation.

The containers had been unsecured as they were about to be moved ashore.

Twelve had sunk, and five floated across the harbour.

Those five were salvaged on Friday night, but treacherous weather made it too difficult to retrieve five of the sunken containers.

They were hauled back on to the wharf on Saturday with another four that had been found. Another two were recovered yesterday.

Port operations manager Nigel Drake said port staff had "a fair idea" of the whereabouts of the last container.

But they had to wait until today for berthed ships to leave so they could salvage it.

Echo sounders were used to locate each sunken container. Divers then attached ropes secured to a work boat to haul them alongside the wharf. Cranes lifted the containers ashore. The port was reopened late Saturday morning.