David Barnes, who was a Buller District Council (BDC) harbourmaster for a decade, told The News the Manahau was never fit to navigate the West Coast’s sea conditions and safely cross Westport’s often treacherous and shallow bar.
It was too short, underpowered and had insufficient steering. It was built to navigate Indonesian rivers, not conditions like Westport’s, Mr Barnes said.
“She falls down because she’s very low in power and the steering is not good. She needs more power and much, much better steering.”
The Manahau is 98m metres long. The ideal length for Westport Harbour was 110 metres, Mr Barnes said. Because it was too short, the Manahau could “pitch” crossing the bar.
Mr Barnes didn’t believe the Manahau could be adjusted to fit the harbour’s conditions.
“They need a purpose-built ship.”
The barge had very little prospect of fulfilling the aims for which owner, Westland Mineral Sands (WMS), had purchased it, Mr Barnes said.
The company intended to ferry sand out to larger vessels for ship-to-ship transfers in Buller Bay.
“The Buller Bay, as they have now found out, is not a suitable place to be.”
Mr Barnes said WMS had purchased the vessel with “no planning, no forethought, just a ‘good idea’, in inverted commas, without any maritime experience behind them”.
His comments echo those of two experienced sailors who spoke to Stuff.
One sailor with nearly 30 years’ experience pulled out of the shortlist to captain the barge because he believed it was underpowered for West Coast conditions.
Another sailor, Vince Scully, told Stuff his interview to captain the barge was cut short. He believed he “asked too many hard questions”.
“A barge, be it towed …or self-propelled, is not suitable to operations exposed to the Southern Ocean,” he said.
Mr Barnes told The News the Manahau should not have attempted its voyage to Westport last week. It then sat out in Buller Bay for a week before yesterday’s beaching.
“She should never have been where she was. She should never have left Golden Bay last Sunday… She left Golden Bay in the face of an incoming weather forecast which was terrible.”
Mr Barnes said he didn’t know if money had been put ahead of safety. But “commercial expediency” was often a factor in incidents like this, he said.
The Manahau’s crew was not yet experienced at crossing the bar, he said. The weather had allowed a small window of opportunity last Tuesday morning and Mr Barnes said a crossing might have been possible for an experienced crew at that time. But he believed the Manahau’s crew had made the right decision to stay put.
“I think people would need the experience to do that and I don’t think they had that experience.”
Mr Barnes said he saw one of the barge’s two anchors still hooked up when he went to view the barge on Carters Beach yesterday morning. He believed the Manahau only had one anchor deployed before it came ashore.
“There is a law, an unwritten law, which says ‘before you go aground, make sure you’ve got the anchors down’. Even if it’s one metre before you run aground, let the anchor go. Make sure you have no anchors in the pipe when you go aground. Because then you’ve proved that you did everything you could.”
The Maritime Union of New Zealand yesterday issued a statement saying the Manahau’s grounding raised major questions.
National secretary Carl Findlay said concerns had been previously raised by New Zealand seafarers about the foreign crew and flag of the barge. The difficult local conditions at Westport including recent poor weather would be obvious issues to consider when the cause of the grounding was investigated.
Mr Findlay said 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.”
But Mr Barnes said the issue was more likely to be the vessel and not the crew. He understood the Manahau had an Indonesian crew.
“There are thousands of Indonesian seafarers. They go all round the world. So, basically, they have experience… You can run into this sort of weather anywhere you like.”
Mr Barnes said the crew had successfully navigated the Manahau from Indonesia to Nelson without mishap. He believed they were capable. The vessel and the bar were the issues, he said.
By Ellen Curnow and Lee Scanlon of The Westport News
Originally Published in The Westport News; Reproduced with Permission
