Following the recent grounding of the Kea Trader container ship on the Durand Reef, 50 miles southeast of New Caledonia in the Pacific Ocean, Ardent Oceania Salvage asked us to support their recovery operation with our SEASTATES Weather Downtime Express (WDTX) service.

The 25,000 dwt container vessel was en route from Papeete in Tahiti to Noumea when it ran aground, off the island of Maré in the Loyalty Islands on 12 July. So far there have been no reports of any oil pollution from the incident.

Ardent Oceania Salvage, a subscriber to our WDTX service, is currently onboard the ship preparing to re-float it off the exposed reef which is often subjected to harsh weather, especially long ocean swell.

Our weather downtime system is being used to run a variety of scenarios with various assets to gain an understanding of the downtime which can be expected throughout the salvage. We have also provided detailed metocean data for the area allowing the salvors to better understand the ocean swell and corresponding local effects of the reef.

For a free trial of our WDTX service or for more information on our metocean information service visit www.seastates.net 

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