Shippers asked to consider new coastal emergency tug

The shipping industry is likely to be asked in the next few months for its thoughts on a new salvage tug to improve safety around the coast.

Maritime New Zealand has been investigating the possibility of a large salvage tug to deal with emergencies, including groundings, collisions, breakdowns and other sea emergencies.

The New Zealand coast has escaped relatively unscathed from recent emergencies which had the potential to cause some of the worst coastal pollution in maritime history.

One was the grounding of the Jody F Millennium, a log carrier, on a beach near Gisborne for several days in 2002.

Another was the 140,000-tonne bulk carrier Taharoa Express, washed into surf on the west coast at Taharoa, south of Kawhia, two years ago before engineers could restart its engine.

Maritime New Zealand said it had begun working on the concept of an offshore salvage tug to deal with such incidents and hoped to seek maritime industry input within the next few months.

"We are considering the specifications of what our actual requirements are," said the Maritime New Zealand deputy director of safety and response services, Peter Williams.

"Does it have to be an anchor-handling tug, does it have to have a firefighting capability, does it need to be capable of doing search and rescue, should it be able to be used for environmental protection, what are its salvage components? We need to be clear on what we want."

Mr Williams said the agency had to look at who should pay for a salvage tug and where it should be based to properly cover the coast, although Wellington could be a preferred option.

He said Maritime New Zealand would also look at what other services could be provided by private industry, including existing and planned tugs in ports around the country.

- NZPA