The ship, the Rena, hit a reef near the port of Tauranga on October 5th last year. As a result, containers fell into the sea and oil polluted the beaches, killing many sea birds.
This week, a 20 page report gave the facts of what happened. The ship had just come from the port of Napier. It was 13 hours late leaving Napier because it had to wait for another ship to be unloaded first. When the Rena got close to the port of Tauranga, the captain was told to hurry to get there by 3am before the tide changed. If he waited at sea until 7am, it would cost about $6,000. The captain decided to take a short cut. At 2.05am, he heard an echo on the radar and looked through binoculars but saw nothing. At 2.14am, the ship hit a reef.
Although an officer has to make a mark on the chart every 20 minutes to show their position, the sailor keeping watch – not an officer – did this at 1am and 1.20am. That was the last mark on the chart.
Listen to October 9th 2011 to hear more about this or type “Rena” in the search box to hear what happened afterwards.
Vocabulary
reef – rocks
facts – things that are true
unloaded – goods taken off a ship
take a short cut – go in a straight line instead of going around something
echo – a sound is repeated
binoculars – use both eyes to look through this to see something far away
chart – detailed map