By Mitch Pennell - TEI       View more pictures on our gallery

At 2am on Wednesday October 5th 2011 the MV Rena ran aground on Astrolabe Reef off the coast of Tauranga. Dive crews from Auckland and a Svitzer Salvage Engineer were on the scene within a day of the grounding. Svitzer Salvage were looking for an on shore contact and after a web search TEI was selected as a suitable candidate. As the main point of contact I was initially responsible for the purchasing and supplying of all of the salvage equipment requirements.

I made myself and the TEI crew available on 24 hour callout and this service was used on numerous occasions during the Salvage operation. I received the first call at 4pm on Friday the 7^th of October. Svitzer needed assistance in the sealing and the isolating of the Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) tanks on board the stricken vessel.

If the ship was to sink before the oil was removed, at least it would be contained in the huge tanks until it could be safely removed. After recording all the details for the blanking plates I soon found that the flange patterns were not a standard pattern stocked in New Zealand.

I soon made the decision to employ the services of New Zealand Profiles to cut the flanges. Each flange required a handmade sealing gasket and hundreds of bolts required to fit the plates on board.

With the exceptional service provided by NZP over the next few days cutting dozens of flanges and some long hours put in by myself, Darren and a few other TEI staff the tanks were sealed off.

The next issue was transporting goods to the vessel. Many items went by Tug boat and John Finnel and his Choppers were used to fly men and equipment. McDermott Aviation soon had their Bell T14 a heavy lift helicopter flown over from Australia capable of lifting 3 tonne.

Dozens of lifting slings and associated hardware was required for the lifting operations. The Ship moved during an early storm but then settled on a 22 degree list to the starboard side. All equipment ie generators, welders dive gear, compressors etc flown out needed to sit level on deck.

Another urgent call was made from Svitzer to design and manufacture angled platforms to hang generators from the side of the ship. As we were a bit pushed for room in our workshop and were a bit short on man power TEI employed the services of Mt Maunganui Engineering to make the platforms in their workshop with TEI Staff assisting. Once again within 12 hours, 2 of the platforms were ready to fly out and within 24 hours of the call all 5 platforms were hanging off the side of the ship.

The main priority now for Svitzer was to remove the HFO. The Bunker Vessel Awanuia was stationed next to the Rena until pumping was ready to commence. Hundreds of different size Camlock hose connectors, Ball valves, diverters, pump adaptors tee fittings, reducers, flanged connectors, water injection systems etc were made especially for different pumping situations.

Other equipment needed on board were Timber joists and plywood for leveling walkway accesses, portaloo toilets, five 1000ltr Diesel storage tanks hundreds of litres of Hydraulic and engine oils, ladders, thousands of meters of ropes, shackles, slings, Rotor broaches cutting equipment tools, gas, welders, equipment for divers, the list goes on.

Many modifications to pumps and repairs to damaged equipment were also needed over the following months of the salvage.

TEI are proud to have been associated in assisting Svitzer Salvage to minimize a potentially massive environmental disaster. View more gallery pics

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