Clearly - this should not be happening.
Honestly - the captain is an idiot. Hitting a reef these days with a ship is like running into a library with your car. Buildings don't move, you can see them, they are well marked.
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| Not that it always matters... |
Thanks to the sheer idiocy of the captain - who could face fines of as much as $8,700... big deterrent there... there are now 1,870 tons (1,700 metric tons) of oil and 220 tons (200 metric tons) of diesel possibly going to be dumped into the ocean, with 300tons already on the loose. For those of you who don't know, when they say "oil" they mean bunker fuel. Bunker fuel is the sludge at the bottom of the refining process. The reason they keep oil and bunker fuel aboard is because with new regulations (some of which my Dad was instrumental in getting passed around the US) ships have to burn diesel in coastal areas, but can still burn bunker fuel out in the open ocean. Bunker fuel is so nasty that it moves like molasses, causes skin rashes and eye irritation if you touch it or are in the fumes, has more carcinogens than a Marlboro convention, and NOx and SOx emissions
This is what it looks like when you burn it:
In conclusion - what the hell was this guy doing? For $99 you can get a GPS unit, and charts for NZ would probably be another $100. At that point, it would take me about 5 minutes to teach someone how to navigate well enough that you don't hit a goddamn reef.
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