Weather better for Rena salvors (+ weather video) | Bay of Plenty News | Local News in Bay of Plenty

Rena salvors are confident container recovery will progress over the next few days as weather conditions improve and small sea swells of only 0.5m and mild sea breezes of 10-20 knots are forecast.

Maritime New Zealand would not say how many containers were removed yesterday but confirmed that 24 more were lifted from the Rena in a bumper haul on Monday. This brings the total number of containers removed to 243.

Diving surveys have confirmed there has been no change to the status of the vessel, despite further buckling to the hull on its starboard side over the weekend. The stranded ship remains in a fragile state.

Yesterday's over-flight noted patches of oil and a 3km-long metallic sheen about 20m-wide stretching from the Rena and heading north-west. Patches of rainbow sheen were visible for up to 7-8km off the western side of Motiti Island, about half a kilometre from the coast.

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All beach cleaning operations continued yesterday, including warm water rock washing and rock scraping at Mauao.

The beach groomer was operating at Omanu and Papamoa East yesterday, targeting the areas in front of the surf clubs.

Dean Kelliher, of DMI Contracting, said his team has been grooming the beaches for four weeks and appear to be making a difference.

"We are doing the remnants of the oil that got left after the volunteers. [The oil has] basically been 'lasagned' into the sand. It's basically oil, sand, oil, sand, oil, sand. You can clean over one area and the sand moves and it exposes more. There's still a lot of oil coming through," he said.

Having said that, the grooming process - which involves one vehicle lifting debris and sand out the way and a second vehicle lifting the oil - seems to be working.

Mr Kelliher said a recent scientific appraisal of the grooming work had found the technique to work. "We are getting mostly oil," he said.

The Rena beach grooming equipment has been bolstered by specialist gear from the United States and a self-propelled beach cleaner donated to the clean-up effort by Focus Paihia Community Trust.

Meanwhile, three more penguins were released at Moturiki at Mount Maunganui yesterday morning, leaving 40 birds still in captivity.

Motiti Island kaumatua Graham Hoete said local residents were awaiting the arrival of a receptacle tank on a barge from Tauranga after the jump in population on the island had resulted in blocked toilets. Since the Rena grounding, teams of 12 to 16 helpers have been rotating on and off the island helping to clean oil from the surrounding rocky shoreline. Mr Hoete said the volunteers had stopped work on Sunday to take a break over Christmas but estimated they would start again around December 27.