By TONY GEE
A farming family battled stormy weather to recover more than 20 tonnes of paper from a cargo which has washed ashore on isolated Bay of Islands beaches.
The heavy paper rolls, between 1.5m and 2m in length, appear to have broken loose from one of six containers lost overboard from the Bunga Kenari as the Malaysian container vessel fought its way up the east coast of Northland in stormy conditions on Saturday.
Paper washed up along the coast in rolls of up to two tonnes yesterday and on Monday. More paper and other cargo may be on its way to shore.
Avis and Bill Mountain, with their son Shane, used their tractor to drag 10 kraft paper rolls above the high-tide mark on their property at Oihi Bay, near Te Puna Inlet in the northern Bay of Islands, after the rolls washed ashore on Monday.
"There are now 14 on our beach and three more on beaches in Wairoa Bay," Mrs Mountain said yesterday. "There are bits and pieces of container lying all over the beaches, with bits of aluminium, polystyrene, a hatch cover and a cover from a chiller container."
Northland Regional Council harbourmaster Captain Ian Niblock said yesterday that the paper rolls, described on the ship's manifest as kraft liner, came ashore on the northern side of Te Puna Inlet, and around remote Wairoa Bay and the small Te Pahi Islands.
He acknowledged the efforts of the Mountain family in retrieving what they could.
"If the rolls had remained in the water, they would have begun to break up and would have made a very unpleasant mess."
His major concern now is the whereabouts of the other five missing containers.
The Bunga Kenari, owned by the Malaysian International Shipping Co, was bound for Brisbane when it reported losing three containers of paper, two of refrigerated cargo and one thought to contain wool, somewhere between Little Barrier Island and Cape Karikari in the Far North, a distance of about 140 nautical miles.
When the containers were first lost, the Maritime Safety Authority issued a navigation warning for the entire Northland east coast.
Giant rolls of paper wash ashore from cargo lost in storm
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