A Panama-flagged bulk carrier has recently become the first foreign ship ordered to leave New Zealand waters after found ‘dirty’. Now the ship has been allowed to leave the port of Tauranga after its hull was cleaned outside New Zealand, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) confirmed.
The DL Marigold was ordered on March 6 to leave the eastern North Island port of Tauranga within 24 hours, after the discovery of dense fouling of barnacles and tube worms on its hull.
However, the vessel returned to Tauranga, on March 28th, to finish unloading a shipment of palm kernel after using divers to undertake cleaning at sea outside New Zealand waters.
Photos illustrating the vessel’s hull condition before its arrival at the Port and after its cleaning operation were provide to MPI. After checking them, MPI border clearance services capability manager confirmed that the ship is now clean and in compliance with New Zealand biosecurity requirements.
MPI also stated that it is willing to ‘’take a hard line on vessels with severe biofouling in the lead-up to the introduction of new biosecurity rules in May 2018’’, therefore, vessels are advised to take into consideration these rules, which require all international vessels to arrive with a clean hull.
In particular, MPI suggests the following three measures for ships for meeting NZ biofouling requirements:
- Cleaning before visit to New Zealand, (or immediately on arrival in a facility or by a system, approved by MPI). All biofouling must be removed from all parts of the hull and this must be carried out less than 30 days before arrival to New Zealand or within 24 hours after time of arrival
- Continual Maintenance using best practice including: application of appropriate antifoul coatings; operation of marine growth prevention systems on sea-chests; and in-water inspections with biofouling removal as required. Following the IMO Biofouling Guidelines is recognised as an example of best practice
- Application of Approved Treatments. Treatments are approved and listed under the Approved Biosecurity Treatments on the MPI website.
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