Whanganui port regular MV Anatoki shows versatility at Port Otago

A wharf-side digger moves fertiliser from MV Anatoki on to a truck in the upper Otago Harbour. Photo / Gregor Richardson

The use of a digger to move fertiliser from MV Anatoki in the upper Otago Harbour shows the vessel's flexibility as a bulk carrier, its owners say.

The Japanese-built vessel this week delivered the load of fertiliser for the Ravensdown fertiliser plant, from Napier via Nelson, owners Coastal Bulk Shipping Ltd said.

"Coastal shipping is quite an important part of transport infrastructure," company manager Doug Smith, of Whanganui, said.

The 51m-long vessel late last year took general and some frozen cargo to the Chatham Islands, and later picked up the fertiliser at Napier, and headed to Nelson, where the ship's four-strong crew were based.

After the crew spent Christmas with their families, the vessel went south to Dunedin, "just to fill a temporary shortfall", Smith said.

Having reached Port Otago's T/U sheds on Monday, the vessel left for Nelson on Wednesday.

"We've been around for 12 years now, operating around the coast."

The vessel represented a return to traditional coastal shipping, but with cargo sizes of about 800 tonnes, rather than the then maximum of about 2000 tonnes in the previous era of coastal shipping 30 years ago.

The port infrastructure needed to handle the earlier, bigger coastal ships no longer existed, but the digger showed the Anatoki's flexibility.

"There's a digger in every town."

The company had secured longer-term contracts to carry grain from Timaru to Whanganui and would also like to develop the Dunedin connection further, but that depended on gaining sufficient cargo, he said.

The MV Anatoki was bought in Japan in December 2007, having been launched in 1992 as Kaijin Maru No18.