Second ship report censures pilot

By JO-MARIE BROWN

The pilot who ordered the Jody F Millennium to leave Port Gisborne during a severe storm last year has again been criticised in a report on the ship's grounding.

The Transport Accident Investigation Commission today released its findings on how the logging ship wound up stranded on Waikanae Beach for 18 days in February last year.

Last month, the Maritime Safety Authority's report on the incident said Captain Robert Sands should be severely censured for getting off the Jody too early and leaving the ship's Korean master to negotiate the shipping channel alone.

Today's report again says the pilot acted inappropriately in disembarking when he did and that the subsequent slowing of the ship to allow him to get off "removed any remaining possibility that the ship might negotiate the channel successfully".

The Jody was too deeply laden to try to clear the channel when she set out four hours before high tide, it said.

"The pilot and master were separately operating under extreme pressure causing them to exclude or misinterpret information that would have made them realise the ship could not safely negotiate the channel at the state of the tide at the time the ship actually left the wharf."

The report also says that the surge in Gisborne's harbour on the day the Jody ran aground was more severe than previously experienced.

Further reading: nzherald.co.nz/marine