Rock strike caused near-fatal grounding of tourist vessel in New Zealand

Evacuation of passengers from the Black Cat

(Credit: TVNZ via RNZ taken by a witness)

From The Maritime Executive

The near-fatal grounding and loss of a tourist catamaran in New Zealand waters early this year was caused by the vessel coming into contact with a known hazard after the master approached it from an “unusual direction.” 

That was the finding detailed in an interim report from New Zealand’s transportation authority.

The Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) released its interim report detailing the grounding and subsequent total loss of the Black Cat catamaran on the morning of January 31, 2026.
The report shows the vessel was breached after coming into contact with the Archway Rock, a documented submerged rock.
Investigations so far indicate the master had approached the known hazard from an unusual direction.

Built in 1994, the Black Cat was a 17-meter catamaran owned by Black Cat Cruises and operated out of Akaroa, offering sightseeing tours from the South Island.
On the fateful day, the vessel was conducting a regular two-hour wildlife and scenic cruise with 38 passengers and three crewmembers aboard.
The vessel departed her berth at Akaroa Harbor at 1045 and visited various locations.
The weather was calm, prompting the master to decide to navigate outside Akaroa Harbor and visit Scenery Nook on the south coast, where they arrived around 1152.

 

 

Black Cat’s track from Scenery Nook to the beach at Nikau Palm Gully

(from the report) 

 

Visualization with the GeoGarage platform (Linz nautical raster chart NZ6364)

 

Localization with the NZ ENC (NZ406324)

The vessel approached Archway Rock from an "unusual direction".

It struck an underwater rock of unknown depth that was marked on navigational charts as a dangerous hazard 

The report shows that upon approaching Scenery Nook, the master moved to the starboard bridge wing helm station to maneuver the vessel close to known rocks.
He then decided to visit Archway Rock on the way back to Akaroa.
At about 1207, the Black Cat left Scenery Nook, and the master moved back to the central bridge helm station so they could look at the chart plotter regarding their intended route.
The master then moved to the port bridge wing helm station and navigated toward Archway Rock.

About this time, one of the crewmembers noticed the vessel was approaching Archway Rock from an unusual direction.
Minutes later, the vessel struck the rock, causing a rupture to its hull and flooding, including in the engine.
The crew failed to activate the bilge pumping system because they were not confident in how to operate the system correctly.

Unable to pump the water, the master navigated the vessel into Akaroa Harbor to facilitate a safe evacuation.
The report shows that while in the harbor, the vessel’s steering and starboard engine had stopped operating and the emergency steering was not responding.
The vessel had developed a significant starboard list.

 

image : TAIC

Nearby vessels helped in evacuating the passengers while a Coastguard vessel that was exercising just outside Akaroa Harbor attempted to dewater the Black Cat using a portable petrol-powered water pump.
The efforts were unsuccessful, and the master tried to save the vessel by attempting to maneuver her towards the beach when it ran aground.
A salvage operation the following day failed to refloat and recover the vessel, which broke up in heavy weather conditions.

TAIC highlights that while the interim report presents facts that have been established so far, it intends to publish its final report on the incident upon completion of the investigations.
The final report will present analysis, discuss safety issues, and make recommendations.

 

Links :

• TAIC : Interim report - grounding of Black Cat in January 2026 / Passenger vessel, Black Cat Grounding Entrance to Akaroa Harbour, New Zealand 31 January 2026 / TAIC investigating the grounding of tourist ferry Black Cat in Akaroa
• RNZ : Black Cat crew 'not confident' to operate pump, as tourist boat floods
• ThePress : Black Cat cruise hit known hazard after travelling in ‘unusual’ direction, investigators find 
• Boating NZ : Update on Black Cat Cruises vessel incident, Akaroa Harbour
• Chris Lynch newsroom: Report: Black Cat struck known underwater hazard after approaching from ‘unusual’ direction
• DCN : Black Cat grounding detailed by TAIC 

Global shipping traffic density

It’s hard to imagine the number of ships traversing the oceanic highways every day, but this visualisation submitted to #CopernicusMarine‘s 2025 #DataViz challenge, is a mesmerising depiction of the major shipping routes used between 2015 and 2020.

Created by Julian Hoffman… pic.twitter.com/BQraXB4gHB

— Copernicus Marine (@CMEMS_EU) August 24, 2026

Image of tyhe week : icy window

One of the most unusual images was captured from beneath the sea ice north of Svalbard, Norway.
Photographer Audun Rikardsen had spotted polar bear tracks close to a seal breathing hole. He drilled another hole nearby and placed a camera beneath the ice, attaching a motion sensor.
Around eight hours later, a polar bear arrived and looked down through the opening, producing the striking image titled Icy Window.
Seals use gaps in the sea ice to surface for air, but the same openings can also provide opportunities for polar bears hunting for prey.

source : Scubaverse 

The promise and the pitfalls of China’s new Arctic shipping route

illustration: the economist / getty images

From The Economist 

The Northern Sea Route is a pricey and risky alternative to the Suez Canal

For a world newly preoccupied with maritime choke points, the voyage of the Dubai Tower offers a flicker of promise.
The container ship set off from the Chinese port of Ningbo on August 15th to begin the first regular cargo service between Asia and Europe via the Arctic Ocean.
Sea Legend, the vessel’s Chinese owner, says that it will complete the 5,000km journey to Felixstowe, on Britain’s east coast, in about 20 days.
That is roughly twice as fast as sailing the usual route via the Suez Canal.
Crucially, the “Arctic Express” (as the company calls the service) avoids the risk of being entangled in the Middle East’s military conflicts.

 

map: the economist

For a world newly preoccupied with maritime choke points, the voyage of the Dubai Tower offers a flicker of promise.
The container ship set off from the Chinese port of Ningbo on August 15th to begin the first regular cargo service between Asia and Europe via the Arctic Ocean.
Sea Legend, the vessel’s Chinese owner, says that it will complete the 5,000km journey to Felixstowe, on Britain’s east coast, in about 20 days.
That is roughly twice as fast as sailing the usual route via the Suez Canal.
Crucially, the “Arctic Express” (as the company calls the service) avoids the risk of being entangled in the Middle East’s military conflicts.map: the economist
The new service via the so-called Northern Sea Route (nsr), which runs through the Bering Strait and over the top of Russia, is an early test of China’s Arctic ambitions.
In 2018 the country outlined plans to develop shipping routes, mining and infrastructure in the Arctic, hoping to take advantage of rapidly receding polar ice.
Many of the plans, which are marketed collectively as a “polar silk road”, have met resistance.
Seven of the eight countries with Arctic territory are Western democracies.
They worry that China is working closely with Russia in the region and that Chinese activities there could be useful for future military purposes, such as operating submarines.
Some bridled at China, whose northernmost point is on about the same latitude as Hamburg, declaring itself a “near-Arctic state”.
Nonetheless China hopes to attract fresh interest in the northern route from governments and companies alarmed by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the threat from Iranian-backed Houthi fighters to shipping in the Red Sea.
China is also more anxious than ever about its own reliance on the narrow Malacca Strait, the hinge between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, through which most of its energy imports pass.
And China will soon not be alone on the nsr.
In June Japan said that it would revise its Arctic policy to promote the route.
A South Korean shipping company, PanStar, plans to send one of its container ships on a trial run through the Arctic Ocean on August 22nd, aiming to complete the voyage from Busan to Felixstowe in just 18 days.
It’s no sleigh ride
Thanks to climate change, conditions for the nsr are likely to grow more favourable.
The minimum summer extent of Arctic ice has been shrinking by more than 12% a decade.
In March the maximum extent of winter ice reached its lowest level since records began in 1979.
On August 16th, the latest available reading, Arctic ice covered 5.5m square kilometres.
That is well below the median extent of ice on the same date in the years between 1981 and 2010 but above the lowest ever extent, recorded in 2012.
That September, the ice shrank to just 3.4m square kilometres.
One selling point for Sea Legend’s service is that a shorter sailing time means less fuel burned—fuel accounts for seven-tenths of shipping costs.
That also reduces carbon emissions.
And cooler weather on the Northern Sea Route is better for transporting some high-tech goods that are sensitive to temperature.
Without refrigeration, temperatures inside containers on the Suez Canal route can reach 60°C.
The Dubai Tower is carrying goods including batteries, solar modules and electric-vehicle components, mainly from cities in China’s Yangzi river delta.
For all those apparent advantages, the Arctic Express also highlights the limitations of the nsr.
It will run only from August to October, when the route is largely free of ice.
Sea Legend plans eight voyages in that window, using seven vessels.
For the rest of the year, only ships with reinforced hulls may navigate the Arctic.
Sea Legend has bought or leased some of these, but only relatively small ones, as they are costly and in short supply.
They may also need to be escorted by Russian nuclear-powered icebreakers.
All the extra costs erode the northern route’s price advantage.
So do insurance premiums.
They are usually higher for the nsr than for the Suez Canal, despite war-risk premiums for the canal.
They are also 40% higher than for sailing around the Cape of Good Hope, the chief alternative to the Suez Canal.
Allianz, an insurance giant, warned in its recent annual safety review of the shipping industry that the remote Arctic route posed significant extra risks because of its harsh weather and the limited infrastructure available for repairs, assistance, rescue or salvage.
It said that machinery damage or failure caused almost half of the reported shipping incidents in Arctic waters in the past decade.
The environmental impact is potentially greater, too.
Bellona, a Norwegian environmental group, warned in a report last year that in the Arctic there are no effective ways to deal with fuel spills because of the difficulty of cleaning up fuel in cold conditions and the distance from emergency-response centres.
(The International Maritime Organisation has banned the use and carriage of heavy fuel oil in the Arctic since 2024, though Russia does not heed the ban.) Noise pollution from ships also affects marine mammals such as whales and walruses in the Arctic more than elsewhere, since low-frequency sounds travel farther in cold water.
Ships on the northern route pass through vital feeding and breeding grounds.
International carriers avoid the route in large part because of geopolitical risk.
Ships on the nsr often need permits, ice-breaking services or other assistance from Russia, potentially violating Western sanctions linked to its war in Ukraine.
Shipping may in future be disrupted by an intensifying contest between Russia and other countries to control the region’s ample mineral resources.
The Arctic, once preserved as a zone of peace, is becoming increasingly militarised, as Donald Trump continues to threaten Greenland and nato seeks to deter Russian aggression on its northern flank.
All this helps to explain why total transit cargo on the Northern Sea Route was just 3.2m tonnes in 2025, up from about 3m the year before.
That is tiny compared with about 464m tonnes through the Suez Canal last year.
The bulk of Arctic shipping is between Russian and Chinese ports, rather than between Asia and Europe, much of it consisting of shipments of Russian oil or gas.
In a recent report, the Clingendael Institute, a Dutch think-tank, concluded that the route’s “most viable function…remains that of a selective corridor for Arctic resource exports.”
Still, as Malte Humpert of the Arctic Institute in Washington argues, the nsr will grow in importance for China as a seasonal trade corridor for when traditional routes are disrupted.
He envisages hundreds of annual container passages a decade hence.
“The question is when Western operators decide to re-enter the market—and more importantly, whether they still can,” Mr Humpert says.
Arctic navigation requires training and operational experience, and “China and South Korea are building that expertise now.”
For the moment, Sea Legend admits, the tight seasonal window and limited capacity of its Arctic service make it hard to compete with conventional routes.
But it is already planning to expand the navigational window to four months by 2028 and eventually to the entire year.
Further conflict in the Middle East could provide incentives for it and other companies to invest in larger, ice-strengthened ships.
And if temperatures in the Arctic continue to rise three times faster than the global annual average, then doubts about the viability of the nsr may recede as fast as China’s ambitions for the region grow.

 

Links :

• The Conversation :  China Opens New Arctic Trade Route–But Obstacles Will Prevent Its Wider Use 

The ocean just broke a temperature record that may have stood for millennia

 

From WP by Ben Noll

Marine heat waves currently cover 42 percent of the planet’s oceans.

As a record-breaking El Niño builds in the Pacific and large swaths of the globe’s oceans are affected by marine heat waves, a significant record has fallen.

According to data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, average global sea surface temperatures have reached a new high, rising to nearly 70 degrees Fahrenheit late last week — potentially for the first time in millennia.

 

This mark surpassed the previous record set in March 2024.

“August 21st likely marked the warmest Sea Surface Temperatures have been for the entire Holocene period, and possibly even as far back as the last Interglacial 125,000 years ago,” wrote University of Ottawa professor Ryan Katz-Rosene on X.
Sea surface temperatures from thousands of years ago are reconstructed using marine sediment cores, which contain tiny fossils whose chemistry reflects the temperature of the water in which they formed.

These records indicate that global sea surface temperatures are now higher than at any time in at least 12,000 years and are probably reaching levels experienced during the last interglacial period, around 123,000 to 128,000 years ago.
The unusual ocean warmth has fueled powerful storms in the Pacific, such as Hurricane Lala near Hawaii, helped create a reservoir of extra moisture that has contributed to recent rainfall extremes across the United States and boosted summer heat across Europe.

About 42 percent of the planet's oceans are currently covered by marine heat wave conditions. Marine heat waves are marked by unusual and persistent ocean warmth compared to average. 

(Ben Noll/The Washington Post; NOAA)

According to NOAA data, 42 percent of the planet’s oceans are currently experiencing marine heat waves.

In the Pacific Ocean alone, marine heat waves cover an area that’s equivalent to nine times the size of the contiguous United States — greatly contributing to the new global sea surface temperature record. 

 

Links :

• BBC : World's oceans hit highest temperature on record as El Niño grows
• Copernicus: Daily global sea surface temperature breaks 2024 record
• The Guardian : World’s oceans hit hottest temperature on record in August 
• Scientific American : Earth’s oceans just hit their hottest temperature ever—it’s only going to get worse