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.