Rena pleads guilty
February 29th, 2012 at 4:00 pm by David FarrarStuff reports:
The captain of the cargo ship which grounded on a reef off Tauranga last year has pleaded guilty to all charges against him.
The Rena hit the Astrolabe Reef in October last year causing an environmental disaster – spilling oil and containers into the water and killing masses of sea animals. The stricken ship broke in two early this year.
The captain pleaded guilty today in the Tauranga District Court to charges laid under the Maritime Transport Act, Crimes Act and Resource Management Act.
Good to have the guilty pleas. It will be interesting to see the summary of facts when it is released.
February 29th, 2012 at 4:27 pm
Seen as you are having a crack at headline writers, pretty sure it’s the captain that pleaded guilty, Rena was just an innocent accomplice.
Vote:February 29th, 2012 at 4:46 pm
I cannot believe that sentencing has to wait until May. It does not matter when someone is remanded in custody for a serious crime but the Captain and navigation officer are on bail. IMO the sooner they serve any jail, home detention or community sentence time and leave the country the better. One would have thought that sentencing reports and sentencing could have been done within a week or two. At a guess a jail term is unlikely otherwise the judge would probably have thrown them straght into jail pending sentencing.
Vote:February 29th, 2012 at 5:19 pm
Hardly an “environmental disaster”.
It was an unfortunate environmental incident, which did NOT ..”kill masses of sea animals”. Some sea birds were killed,( the number probably equating the same that died from natural causes, such as predation, natural death etc.
The incident was very well contained by concerned citizens and the appropriate authorities.
Vote:February 29th, 2012 at 5:39 pm
And before you all wail and moan, its been great for Taurnaga. Generated heaps of work, lots of publicity, introduced lots of people to community work, got people of thier comfy couches and above all it bought out the comminity pride that is so often overlooked. Just like Christchurch.
So got any negative to say. Fuck off. (probably generated anough taxes to pay back what the Govt spent on various “good” causes and such.
8)
Ain’t it great.
P.S. When this one is cleaned up we are going to organise a bigger one
Vote:February 29th, 2012 at 7:10 pm
Be interesting to see if, when we get the bloodletting over, will we get a tighter control on foreign vessels in our waters by requiring them to have an NZ Pilot on board inside territorial waters?
Vote:February 29th, 2012 at 7:22 pm
I wanna know if the guy was drunk due to celebrating his 40th….thats the rumour.
Vote:February 29th, 2012 at 7:31 pm
Course my idea is a good one unless the pilot gets on the piss as well wreck.
http://www.nzmaritime.co.nz/lermontov.htm
Vote:February 29th, 2012 at 7:49 pm
Who the hell care’s? Lots of insurance money getting spent.
All Good.
If you need to ramp up employment in Wellywood johnboy get yourselves a wreck. A real one that is. Plonk it down about a km of Somes. On that Little island the name of which I can’t remember. ah Now I do: Ward Island
Don’t do oil tanker though.
Vote:February 29th, 2012 at 8:11 pm
While the shipping companies would nominally pay for any pilots required within NZ waters, the costs would be effectively passed on to exporters Ieg farmers for milk products) and importers. So the issue becomes one of whether the benefits to NZ of having pilots outweighs the cost to NZ. There could be other methods such a marine ‘control room’ utilising GPS tracking and the ability to call the bridge, master or mate directly if there is a potential problem. Suvh a control room operstion already exists from Far North to Auckland.
Vote:February 29th, 2012 at 8:15 pm
As long as all on the bridge ain’t pissed it sounds very cost effective peterwn.
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