Call for tougher regulation after rudder falls off log ship

The Mari­time Uni­on says there needs to be a tight­en­ing up on Flag of Con­veni­ence ships com­ing into New Zea­l­and waters before there is anoth­er dis­aster.

The Panamani­an flagged log ship Achilles Bulk­er is anchored off Mount Maunganui after its rud­der fell off on 24 July.

The Achilles Bulk­er was leav­ing Taur­anga under pilot­age when the incid­ent occurred. The rud­der has been recovered by divers and brought to shore.

The ship has been detained by industry reg­u­lat­or Mari­time New Zea­l­and pending invest­ig­a­tion and will need to be towed to a dry dock for repairs.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Craig Har­ris­on says it is an unusu­al and extremely con­cern­ing event.

Mr Har­ris­on says the sud­den loss of con­trol on a fully laden ves­sel of this size could have cata­stroph­ic res­ults.

“This situ­ation could have ended very badly if it had occurred in bad weath­er con­di­tions.”

He says the qual­ity of Flag of Con­veni­ence ‘ships of shame’ com­ing onto the New Zea­l­and coast had been an ongo­ing prob­lem for dec­ades.

Mr Har­ris­on says build­ing up a high qual­ity New Zea­l­and coastal fleet is an import­ant pri­or­ity for ensur­ing safer ship­ping, as well as more rig­or­ous inspec­tions of inter­na­tion­al Flag of Con­veni­ence ves­sels.

A Flag of Con­veni­ence (FOC) ship is one that flies the flag of a coun­try oth­er than the coun­try of own­er­ship. Many FOC ves­sels are notori­ous for the issues around sea­wor­thi­ness, sub­stand­ard safety, and poor con­di­tions for inter­na­tion­al crews.

Mr Har­ris­on says Mari­time New Zea­l­and had acted quickly and appro­pri­ately in their response, but ques­tions have to be asked about how an incid­ent like this was even pos­sible.

Pre­vi­ous major incid­ents have occurred with Flag of Con­veni­ence ships sail­ing to or from New Zea­l­and ports in recent years. These include the Rena ground­ing on the Astro­labe Reef in 2011 and the sink­ing of the live­stock car­ri­er Gulf Live­stock 1 in 2020 en route from the Port of Napi­er to China.

The Achilles Bulk­er was built in 2003 and is bene­fi­cially owned in Taiwan by Sesoda Corp, and man­aged by Sin­cere Indus­tri­al Corp, also out of Taiwan.

There is no record of pre­vi­ous mech­an­ic­al issues on the Achilles Bulk­er, but the ves­sel was brought to the atten­tion of the ITF (Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion) New Zea­l­and inspect­or­ate in Feb­ru­ary 2023, when the Mas­ter refused shore leave to crew due to con­cerns about COVID. The situ­ation was resolved.