The really tragic thing about the Rena shipwreck seems to be the stunning levels of incompetence shown by everyone who has had anything official to do with it.

First the captain and his officers who managed to find, and hit, a reef hazard 13 nautical miles offshore of the port they were heading for - one that has been clearly marked on the charts for over 100 years - in broad daylight, in perfect visibility, going at 17 knots - full steam ahead, or nearly for that class of vessel. No excuses there: the captain and his first officer have both rightly been charged with offences under the Maritime Safety Act and they are the principal culprits.

Highlighting also the fact that while being in Greek ownership, the ship is Liberian-registered under a flag of convenience and sailing with a mainly Filipino crew, a well known economy measure in shipping circles. Also indicative is the fact that the ship had failed technical inspections at more than one of the ports it had previously visited.

Next, New Zealand's supine and useless Maritime NZ agency, which let the wreck sit on the reef for five whole days in perfect weather and calm seas and did nothing at all. Until the last couple of days, in the face of a gathering storm, they managed to get 0.1% of the heavy crude oil pumped off the vessel, then had to abandon any further efforts for another day or two while the wreck, which is sitting with its heavily damaged front section on the reef and its back section in much deeper water, started (predictably) to break up and drop hundreds of containers into the water.

And last but not least, the onshore authorities, responsible for dealing with the oil spill which is now coming ashore on the finest beaches in the world, whose efforts so far seem to have been to tell concerned locals to go away and - again over a week after the event - putting up notices to warn of the hazard.

On the radio as I'm writing this is a news report that Maritime NZ has issued closure notices for all the beaches in the Bay of Plenty area. But, get this, people found on the beaches won't be arrested or prosecuted. Huh?

Meanwhile, desperate locals, environmentalists, animal welfare organisations, surfer groups and others are pleading with the authorities to be allowed to get started on the clean-up, only to be rebuffed, on the grounds that oil disposal requires training to do. I ask you! How complicated is it to be issued with a pair of gloves, a shovel and a bucket and pointed towards the sea?

I did just that when the Torrey Canyon wrecked all the beaches on the north coast of Cornwall, UK and while one individual's efforts looked pretty puny against five miles of black, stinking sand, I felt that I was doing my bit.

There's a lot of anger here in NZ at the moment.