Singapore-registered ship towed to safety after engine failure in New Zealand waters

A Singapore-registered container ship has been towed to safety after it sent out a distress call on Friday morning following an engine failure in New Zealand waters.

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) said in a statement on Friday that the ship, named Shiling, was towed by a tug arranged by New Zealand’s maritime authority to a bay near the northern tip of the country’s South Island for assessment and repair.

The ship had earlier requested assistance from Maritime New Zealand at 4.30am after it lost its main propulsion and started drifting in heavy swells about 22 nautical miles north-west of Farewell Spit in New Zealand, the statement said.

MPA is investigating the cause of this incident and rendering necessary assistance to the ship manager and the ship master, it added.

This is the third time that the vessel has run into issues in New Zealand waters.

Maritime NZ had earlier said it was in contact with the vessel, which has 24 crew members, and that an ocean-going tug arrived around 6pm local time (2pm Singapore time) to tow the vessel.

Built in 2005, the Shiling is owned by Shiling Navigation, a shipping service based in Singapore. 

A New Zealand Defence Force spokesman told the New Zealand Herald that multiple helicopters and an aircraft were sent to the site after the vessel lost power 22 nautical miles from Farewell Spit, a narrow sand spit in South Island. 

The spokesman said the ship was “drifting in rolling seas after losing power”.

At the request of the rescue coordination centre, a C-130 Hercules aircraft was diverted from an exercise to assess the situation.

The ship’s technical manager, Asian-Alliance Ship Management (ASM), told The Straits Times on Friday that the main engine had failed while the ship was on its way to Singapore.

The firm said it is working closely with the local authorities and emergency service providers to bring the situation under control, adding that it would investigate the incident to find out what happened and take steps to prevent it from happening again.

“All crew are safe and accounted for, and there have been no reports of pollution,” it added.

Maritime NZ said in a Facebook post that the ship put out the mayday call around 11am local time after requesting assistance about 2½ hours before that.

The authority said earlier that there was “no risk of it running aground prior to the arrival of the tug”, adding that conditions had improved since the mayday call and that the vessel master had stated he was comfortable staying on the vessel.

ASM declined to comment on why the vessel had broken down again despite previous repair efforts, saying only that it had “departed in good and sound condition”.

On July 4, 2022, the vessel had engine failure in Wellington Harbour. The New Zealand authorities did not allow it to depart until the engine had been repaired.

It then broke down in Wellington’s main shipping channel in mid-April due to a power failure and had to drop two anchors to come to a stop.

At the time, Maritime NZ prohibited the ship from leaving Wellington Harbour until all power generators and the main engine were fully operational.

It left the harbour last Wednesday, but broke down again two days later, on Friday.

Wellington regional harbourmaster Grant Nalder told the Herald that he has raised concerns about the vessel to Maritime NZ after the latest breakdown. 

“This is the third time, which I’m not happy about and they are looking very carefully at the ship. I understand she hasn’t had any problems in other New Zealand ports but I’m concerned that this has happened again,” he said.

Correction note: In an earlier version of the story, we said that the Shiling is owned by DP World’s Feedertech. This is incorrect. The container ship is owned by Shiling Navigation. We are sorry for the error.