This morning saw the start of a three-week hearing into what to do with the remnants of the Rena boxship, New Zealand’s worst maritime environmental disaster.
The Diana Shipping controlled vessel, carrying 1,368 containers, smashed into a reef on October 5, 2011. Choppy seas made salvage at the time near impossible. The Rena Resource Consent Hearings will decide whether to move what is left of the ship or to leave it where it is, off the Bay of Plenty.
The owners of the wrecked cargo ship Rena are arguing it is too unsafe and expensive to move after four years on the Astrolabe Reef off Tauranga.
Salvage operations have so far run to a cost in excess of $314m, making it the second most expensive salvage in maritime history, second only to that of the Concordia cruiseship in Italy.
