An unsafe vessel from Tairua Harbour has been removed after being judged at risk of potentially sinking and creating an environmental and navigation hazard.

The Waikato Regional Council says a key problem relating to the vessel sinking was the amount of shellfish – especially mussels – that had grown on the vessel's hull.

The Waikato Regional Council says it scrapped four tonnes of mussels from the hull of a vessel it removed from the Tairua Harbour yesterday. Photo: WRC

Some four tonnes of mussels were scraped off the hull after the vessel was removed from the harbour using a crane.

Maritime Services manager Nicole Botherway says the vessel was removed yesterday after repeated requests to the owner to deal with the safety issues were not acted on.

'The harbourmaster and the council did not make this decision lightly and called in a surveyor and diver to provide a safety assessment,” says Nicole. 'We were informed it was only a matter of weeks before this vessel sunk as the integrity of the hull was compromised by the pitting made by the oysters and mussels.

'This sinking danger was illustrated clearly by the fact that water poured from the vessel when the growth was removed after the vessel was taken from the harbour.”

Nicole says council believes it had been fair to the vessel owner; repeated letters had been sent, many discussions had been had with him by phone and the local harbourmaster had visited him.

But ultimately they felt it had to act to protect the environment and the safety of other water users.

'If we hadn't acted we could have been faced with a much more expensive and complicated salvage operation, leaking fuel and oil and a navigation problem for other harbour users.”

Nicole says the name of the vessel and owner are not being made available at this stage, but council intends to recover the costs involved from the owner.

The vessel's hull after it was removed yesterday. Photo: WRC