A salvage team is being brought in to remove a trawler that has run aground on an East Coast beach.
A spokesperson for Moana Pacific Fisheries - owners of the trawler - says salvors will use an excavator to dig a large trench around the Phillip V, which beached five kilometres south of East Cape on Wednesday.
It is hoped the vessel can then be refloated on a high tide with the help of a tug from Gisborne.
Moana Pacific Fisheries says the attempt to refloat the vessel is scheduled for Saturday.
Salvors have started removing some of the two thousand five hundred litres of diesel fuel on board the trawler.