A boat has become partly submerged in the Marlborough Sounds prompting an oil spill response from the harbourmaster.
By Kira Carrington of Local Democracy Reporting
The 56-foot launch, named the Padrone, sunk near Waitaria Bay jetty in Kenepuru Sound on Tuesday, carrying 2000 litres of diesel and 60 litres of engine oil.
On-scene commander Pete Hamill told Local Democracy Reporting that the harbourmaster had received a call that a moored boat had sunk about 11am.
No one was on the boat when it sunk, he said.
The owner had gone out to the submerged boat early in the morning and “tried to do what he could” before alerting Marlborough District Council.
Hamill said the harbourmaster put together a team of trained oil spill responders, and brought in spill management gear from Picton. The team set out from Havelock aboard the harbourmaster boat Resolution at 2.45pm, arriving in Waitaria Bay about 3.30pm.
When they arrived they saw the Padrone’s stern was sitting on the relatively shallow sea floor, with two thirds of the boat still above water, Hamill said.
The team deployed “sausage-type” oil absorbent booms around the Padrone, and put a rapid deployment boom, an orange plastic fence-like structure that floated, around the boat to contain any spill.
“There hasn't been a lot of oil coming out at this stage. It's mainly only the bilge oil, which is that stuff that's in around the engines and the lights,” Hamill said.
“Because it's so shallow, the steel breathers have stayed above the water all the time.”
The small amount of oil spill they had observed was contained within the rapid deployment boom, he said.
Hamill said he was confident the team had the spill under control but would monitor the boat as a precautionary measure as the tide rose. High tide would be at 11.48pm on Tuesday.
“We're just getting prepared so that we've got the vessel completely surrounded if something does happen ... just in case the vessel goes on its side or something like that.
“But at this stage it's firmly aground.”
The Waitaria Bay jetty remained open, he said.
The owner had been in contact with a salvage yard that would assess and refloat the Padrone at daybreak on Wednesday, Hamill said.
At this stage, the cause of the sinking was unknown.
Hamill said the owner did the right thing in contacting the council immediately.
“[By] letting us know, we can get this gear in place before anything did happen, because the last thing we'd like to see if the vessel sinks and we're not told about it and then something's catastrophic happens,” Hamill said.
“These things happen and we've got trained teams to be able to respond to this kind of that thing ... we've got all the latest equipment.”
Hamill praised his team for all their hard work, including their regular exercises so they were ready to respond to such an event.
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
SHARE ME