A language barrier

Crew members are pictured on fishing trawler Te Raukura docked in Otago Harbour yesterday.

• Ship at anchor off coast while crew tested

Te Raukura and Aleksey Slobodchikov have been berthed at Port Otago’s T/U sheds in Dunedin for three weeks, having come from sea.

Crew could be seen hauling ropes and moving objects around the vessels yesterday, and have been seen around the city over the past few weeks.

When asked by an Otago Daily Times reporter if he would come and speak, a crew member said he did not speak English.

As they worked, words could be heard in a language other than English over a loudspeaker system.

The vessels are operated by Maruha, one of three companies bringing Russian and Ukrainian fishing crew to New Zealand at present to work on their deep-sea fishing trawlers.

Eighteen fishermen of several hundred to have arrived in New Zealand in the past few days have been confirmed as having Covid-19. All of the new arrivals are in quarantine or managed isolation in Christchurch.

A Ministry of Health spokeswoman said Te Raukura and Aleksey Slobodchikov, which are New Zealand fishing trawlers, had not visited any international ports.

The crew therefore posed no danger to the community as "they have effectively been quarantining at sea and have had no contact with anyone outside New Zealand", she said.

The operations manager of Maruha did not return calls yesterday.