Grounding of Manahau barge at Westport raises major questions

The Mari­time Uni­on says the ground­ing of the barge Man­a­hau overnight near West­port raises major ques­tions.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Carl Find­lay says con­cerns had been pre­vi­ously raised by New Zea­l­and sea­farers about the for­eign crew and flag of the barge.

He says the cause of the ground­ing has yet to be con­firmed, but the dif­fi­cult loc­al con­di­tions at West­port includ­ing recent poor weath­er would be obvi­ous issues to con­sider.

There had been no reports of injur­ies, which was for­tu­nate as the West Coast was a notori­ously treach­er­ous mari­time envir­on­ment.

The 97.53-metre and 3706-GT self-powered barge Man­a­hau had only just come into ser­vice in August 2024 car­ry­ing min­er­al sands out of shal­low draught port West­port to Nel­son.

Mr Find­lay says the Man­a­hau did not have a New Zea­l­and crew and the flag state was Niue. 

“Ves­sels such as the Man­a­hau oper­at­ing in New Zealand’s unique and chal­len­ging mari­time envir­on­ment should be crewed by exper­i­enced New Zea­l­and sea­farers.”

The oper­at­ors of the Man­a­hau had benefited from Gov­ern­ment fund­ing for the ves­sel.

Mr Find­lay says it had been extremely dis­ap­point­ing to see this sub­stan­tial Gov­ern­ment fund­ing go towards a ves­sel oper­at­ing in New Zea­l­and waters that was neither New Zea­l­and flagged nor crewed.

“In the last sev­er­al years, we saw an upsurge in New Zea­l­and crewed coastal ship­ping, but this is now going back­wards with the loss of coastal ship­ping ser­vices, or in this case, fail­ing to provide jobs for skilled loc­al crews.” 

“New Zea­l­and needs to build its coastal ship­ping capa­city, and that means New Zea­l­and owned, oper­ated and crewed ships.”