Work is being undertaken today to ensure the grounded barge, Manahau remains stable at Westport's Carters Beach.

The near 100m barge grounded at about midnight last night, at the time it had 11 people on-board. The crew remain on the vessel and are safe. The barge is intact, no items have been lost, and there are no leaks. There was no cargo onboard at the time.

Following a discussion with local and regional authorities, Maritime NZ is now the lead response agency for the incident.

This means it will oversee the government response work being undertaken in relation to the vessel and the grounding.

Several Maritime NZ personnel are heading to Westport to support the effort, while a Maritime Incident Response Team has been set up in Wellington, and is being supported by other staff round the country.

Maritime NZ's Incident Controller, Blair Simmons says the key priority has been to stabilise the vessel and then to consider how to move it in a way which looks after the safety of people and the environment. This will require careful planning and analysis, and it will take some time to put things in place. As the vessel remains stable so there is time for this to occur.

"The work to date has involved our people, representatives from the vessel’s operator, as well as from local and regional authorities.

"This afternoon, diggers have been on the beach, creating anchor points to lock the vessel in place.

"This stops it from potentially drifting towards rocks at high-tide," Mr Simmons says.

All work is being undertaken during daylight hours.

The operator has informed Maritime NZ it is has spoken to salvage experts, and is planning on bringing a specialist tug vessel down from Taranaki to support a potential re-float later this week.

"Re-floating the vessel will be a delicate operation, and we will closely review any plans being put in place by the operator," Blair Simmons says.

Maritime NZ strongly discourages anyone from climbing on the vessel, or getting close while machinery is working around it.

"This is an operational area, and people need to stay away for their own safety," Blair Simmons says.

A Maritime NZ investigation into the grounding is underway.

"We also want to thank the hard working staff at Buller District Council and the West Coast Regional Council for their efforts in this response," Blair Simmons says.

The next update will be at about 10 AM Monday, 2 September.

We are not in a position to undertake interviews at this stage.

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