MV ''Rena'' was a

container ship A container ship (also called boxship or spelled containership) is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermodal ...

owned by the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

shipping company Costamare Inc. through one of its subsidiaries, Daina Shipping Co. The ship was built in 1990 as ''ZIM America'' for the

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

i shipping company Zim by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft AG in Kiel, Germany. She was renamed ''Andaman Sea'' in 2007 and had sailed under her current name and owner since 2010. On 5 October 2011, due to navigation errors near the Astrolabe Reef, the ''Rena'' ran aground near

Tauranga Tauranga () is a coastal city in the Bay of Plenty region and the fifth most populous city of New Zealand, with an urban population of , or roughly 3% of the national population. It was settled by Māori late in the 13th century, colonised by ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island country ...

, resulting in an

oil spill An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially the marine ecosystem, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term is usually given to marine oil spills, where oil is released into t ...

. Over the span of several months, she had been battered by consistent heavy winds and rough seas and on 8 January 2012 the ''Rena'' broke in two after a particularly harsh night of bad weather. By 10 January the

stern The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Ori ...

section had slipped off of the reef bank and sunk almost completely.

Description

The ''Rena'' was a

Panamax Panamax and New Panamax (or Neopanamax) are terms for the size limits for ships travelling through the Panama Canal. The limits and requirements are published by the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) in a publication titled "Vessel Requirements". ...

container ship with a container capacity of in seven holds. Her breadth was , and fully laden she had a draught of . Her

gross tonnage Gross tonnage (GT, G.T. or gt) is a nonlinear measure of a ship's overall internal volume. Gross tonnage is different from gross register tonnage. Neither gross tonnage nor gross register tonnage should be confused with measures of mass or weig ...

was 38,788, net tonnage 16,454 and

deadweight tonnage Deadweight tonnage (also known as deadweight; abbreviated to DWT, D.W.T., d.w.t., or dwt) or tons deadweight (DWT) is a measure of how much weight a ship can carry. It is the sum of the weights of cargo, fuel, fresh water, ballast water, provis ...

47,231 tonnes. The ''Rena'' was served by a crew of 20. The ship was propelled by a single eight-cylinder Cegielski- Sulzer 8RTA76 two-stroke low-speed

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-cal ...

directly coupled to a fixed-pitch propeller. The main engine, which had a maximum output of at 98 rpm, burned 90 tons of heavy fuel oil per day while giving the ship a service speed of . For maneuvering at ports the ship was also equipped with a

bow thruster Manoeuvering thruster (bow thruster or stern thruster) is a transversal propulsion device built into, or mounted to, either the bow or stern, of a ship or boat to make it more manoeuvrable. Bow thrusters make docking easier, since they allow th ...

. Shipboard power was generated by two auxiliary generating sets.

History

Career

In the late 1980s the Israeli shipping company Zim launched a major renovation and fleet expansion project, which included ordering 15 new ships. One of the new ships was ''ZIM America'', which was laid down on 4 October 1989 at the Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft AG shipyard in Kiel, Germany. Delivered on 1 April 1990 and registered in

Haifa Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropo ...

, the new container ship enabled Zim to offer a weekly fixed-day sailing schedule for its customers. The ''ZIM America'' was later re-registered under the Maltese

flag of convenience Flag of convenience (FOC) is a business practice whereby a ship's owners register a merchant ship in a ship register of a country other than that of the ship's owners, and the ship flies the civil ensign of that country, called the flag sta ...

in 2004 with

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as her home port, and in 2007 she was renamed ''Andaman Sea''. In 2010 the ''Andaman Sea'' was sold to Daina Shipping Co., a subsidiary of the Greek shipping company Costamare Inc. She was renamed ''Rena'' and registered in the port of

Monrovia Monrovia () is the capital city of the West African country of Liberia. Founded in 1822, it is located on Cape Mesurado on the Atlantic coast and as of the 2008 census had 1,010,970 residents, home to 29% of Liberia’s total population. As th ...

Liberia Liberia (), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean to its south and southwest. ...

2011 grounding and oil spill

On Wednesday, 5 October 2011, at 2:20 AM while sailing from Napier to

, the ''Rena'' ran aground on the Astrolabe Reef off the

Bay of Plenty The Bay of Plenty ( mi, Te Moana-a-Toi) is a region of New Zealand, situated around a bight of the same name in the northern coast of the North Island. The bight stretches 260 km from the Coromandel Peninsula in the west to Cape Runaw ...

. The ship was carrying 1,368 containers, eight of which contained hazardous materials, as well as 1,700 tonnes of heavy fuel oil and 200 tonnes of marine diesel. By Sunday, 9 October, a oil slick threatened wildlife and the area's rich fishing waters. Oil from the ''Rena'' began washing ashore at

Mount Maunganui Mount Maunganui (, ) is a major residential, commercial and industrial suburb of the Tauranga metropolitan area, located on a peninsula to the north-east of Tauranga's city centre. It was an independent town from Tauranga until the completio ...

beach on 10 October. Bad weather that night caused the ship to shift on the reef, and the crew were evacuated. The shifting of the ship caused further damage, resulting in a further 130–350 tonnes of oil leaking. On 11 October the spill was declared New Zealand's worst ever maritime environmental disaster by Environment Minister Nick Smith. By 13 October the ship was listing by 20°, and 88 of her 1368 containers had fallen into the sea. Due to increased pressure to her hull, ''Rena'' was expected at any point to split in two, furthering the environmental impact of the disaster. It was reported on 14 October 2011, that ''Rena'' had cracked in two, held together only by her internal structure and the reef itself. On 8 January 2012, it was reported that the ''Rena'' had broken in two, and while the bow section remained firmly grounded on the reef, the split had caused both sections to slew away from each other and settle lower in the water. This caused further debris and oil to be released into the sea. By 10 January the stern section had been submerged almost completely, and on 4 April it slipped further down the reef and disappeared completely from the surface.

Current status

By June 2014, the wreck had been salvaged of approximately 77% of the initial containers. Major pieces of the wreck have been removed, including the entire bow section being leveled one metre below the low tide mark, removal of the 350-tonne accommodation block (down to D deck), and a major piece of the port side. All fuel and oils were removed, except for about 1 tonne of clingage. There was an ongoing search for the last container of plastic beads. Under the salvage operation, more than 850 tonnes of debris were removed from the area. In a report by the ship's owner, it was noted that the anti-fouling paint on the wreck contains zinc, diuron, copper, and

tributyltin Tributyltin (TBT) is an umbrella term for a class of organotin compounds which contain the (C4H9)3 Sn group, with a prominent example being tributyltin oxide. For 40 years TBT was used as a biocide in anti-fouling paint, commonly known as b ...

(TBT). The same report noted that there is "localised contamination of TBT in on-reef sediments at Astrolabe." The Sediment Quality Report submitted by the ship's owners as part of their resource consent application to leave the wreck on Astrolabe noted, "Sediment contaminant concentrations on Astrolabe Reef adjacent to the wreck indicates adverse effects on organisms are likely to be occurring due to elevated concentrations of copper, zinc, TBT, and PAHs." In February 2016, Daina Shipping was granted consent to leave the unrecovered portions of MV Rena in place on the reef. Salvage and recovery works were completed on 4 April 2016 and the former exclusion zone around the site was lifted. As part of the official access plan, two dive sites for advanced divers were unveiled on a website providing fishing, snorkeling, diving, and safety information. Between them, these two sites cover the bulk of the remaining bow wreckage, while diving to the much deeper stern wreckage is not officially recommended. In December 2020, divers discovered that nature is in the process of recovery and the wreck is becoming a thriving

kelp forest Kelp forests are underwater areas with a high density of kelp, which covers a large part of the world's coastlines. Smaller areas of anchored kelp are called kelp beds. They are recognized as one of the most productive and dynamic ecosystems on Ea ...

. Divers are monitoring for any pieces of steel that might become dislodged and float in the tide to damage the reef, as well as the status of 5 to 10 tonnes of granulated copper trapped underneath the wreck’s hull. The team will keep monitoring the MV Rena for the next 20 years to check it causes no further damage to the reef and any issues are identified early.

References