Rena, a Liberia-flagged 235m vessel ran aground at Astrolabe Reef, off the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand shoreline at approximately 2.20 am on the 5th of October, 2011. Heavy fuel oil was seen to be leaking from the vessel on Wednesday morning. Following the initial release of oil it was observed that ongoing releases occurred on each low tide.
We are very please to announce the addition of Greg Pearson and Frank Sonntag to our team of scientists. Greg has come from his previous role as head of Research and Development at New Zealand Metservice to head up a new atmospheric group within MSL. Greg has extensive experience with the configuration and implementation of state of the art numerical weather prediction models. His skills will be fully utilised to continue to provide the best possible marine forecasts and hindcasts, and also to develop new land based meteorological services.
SwellMap has been generating accurate marine forecasts for hundreds of spots all over New Zealand for 6 years now, helping marine enthusiasts such as surfers and fishermen to know when the conditions are good.
Working out the time a complex offshore project may be delayed or halted because of marine weather conditions has become more accurate with MetOcean Solutions Sequenced Downtime Analysis (SDA) tool.
Oceanographer Dr Brett Beamsley of MetOcean Solutions presented SDA tool at a recent conference in Brisbane. SDA analyses a project’s timelines and weather requirements for execution – by activity – against the past 12 years of high-resolution historical weather conditions. In turn this drives effective project, resource and contract planning.
Wes Warner of MetOcean Solutions says it’s the combination of the activity and the forecast which makes this product different.
The computer generated visual representation of potential oil spill resides on the MetOcean Solutions internet forecast portal, and is designed to give spill responders an instant ‘heads up’ on trajectory in the event of a spill incident.