The captain and navigator of a cargo ship that ran aground were each sentenced to seven months in jail on Friday for their involvement in what authorities have called New Zealand's worst maritime disaster. The two had already pled guilty to operating the ship dangerously and to altering documents, and a preliminary report by transportation investigators found that they had taken shortcuts to reach the port by deadline, eventually causing the ship to run aground on the Astrolabe reef. Maritime New Zealand found that the two senior officers had breached basic safety principles to get to port, and that even after a series of missteps the men could have averted the crash. About ten minutes prior to the crash, the reef involved appeared on the ship's radar, but the captain assumed it came from a smaller ship. After trying to look for the ship in the dead of night, the captain dismissed it as a false reading and continued on. Later, the two men altered the GPS log to mislead authorities. The crash caused the ship to spill about 400 tons of fuel, which killed at least 2,000 sea birds. For the full story, see http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10808610.