Sharks Bite Down on the Rena Salvage Operation
Sharks have literally torn apart the progress of the salvage operation for the stranded cargo ship, Rena, after attacking sonar equipment in the Bay of Plenty of New Zealand.
Efforts of locating containers that fell overboard from the vessel have been stunted due to sharks attacking and critically damaging sonar equipment that is being used to track the lost cargo containers that went overboard during Rena’s grounding. Maritime New Zealand (MNZ) said that crew charged with locating these containers at East Cape could not work this weekend after they discovered the mangled equipment.
PHOTO: An adult Shortfin mako shark
Department of Conservation shark expert, Clinton Duffy, said that these reports are not surprising at all and assumes the mako shark is the likely culprit, thinking the sonar equipment were fish. He told Sky News that a large number of makos have been spotted in the area recently as waters warm and bring tuna into the bay. Duffy added that the size of the equipment would not deter the aggressive makos, and that they have been caught on video attacking remote underwater vehicles and outboard motors in the past.
Despite the setback, crews managed to remove 17 containers over the weekend, bringing the total number of containers removed by Svitzer to 227. 219 containers have been taken to land and are being processed by Braemar Howells container recovery team on East Cape. Braemar Howells are also monitoring nearby Whale Island to try and locate containers by helicopter.
The ship remains intact while divers remain to monitor the continually buckling Rena off of New Zealand’s coast.
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