A ship owned by the People's Republic of China that made an unscheduled stop in the port of Honolulu to repair a crack in its hull is carrying an unspecified type of ammunition, the U.S. Coast Guard said yesterday.

High-ranking officials from the Coast Guard and the U.S. Department of Customs and Border Protection now are conferring with the U.S. State Department on what to do with the damaged ship and its cargo, officials said.

Lt. Nikki Samuel, a spokeswoman for the Coast Guard, said a manifest submitted by the ship indicated it is carrying general cargo, including plywood and steel, as well as ammunition. The manifest was filed so the 485-foot Chinese-flagged Tong Cheng could get permission to enter Hawai'i waters to repair a crack in the hull.

But the manifest does not specify what kind of ammunition the ship is carrying, Samuel said.

Samuel said the ship and its owner indicated the ship was en route from Busan, South Korea, to the Caribbean when a crack 56 inches long and an eighth of an inch wide developed in the ship's hull, below the waterline under the No. 2 cargo hold.

Cargo in the No. 2 hold came in contact with the seawater that leaked in, Samuel said.

The ship was granted permission on Monday to enter the port in Honolulu for hull repairs.

Repair workers spent yesterday pumping water out of the hold into a barge.

That was done to lessen the ship's draft so it can enter Barbers Point Deep Draft Harbor for more permanent repairs, Samuel said.

Samuel said she called officials at the Customs office in Honolulu to find out specifics of the cargo and munitions the ship was carrying but was told that a formal request under the federal Freedom of Information Act would have to be filed to obtain that information.

Port director Lamar Witmer of the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection office in Hawai'i did not return phone messages left for him.

The office's media contact also did not return calls.

But an official familiar with the circumstances, who asked not to be identified because the situation is still developing, said Coast Guard and Customs officials had not been able to inspect the ship's cargo as of mid-afternoon yesterday.

"They don't know yet what all is aboard the ship, and the ship's crew is being evasive about what's aboard and where they were headed other than for a 'small island' in the Caribbean," the official said.

The official said that if the cargo is bound for Cuba, a problem arises because an embargo prevents cargo from being shipped out of any U.S. port to Cuba.

"Even if it were unloaded here, no other ship would be able to transport ... (the cargo) to Cuba. And if the cargo were to be unloaded here and presented a safety issue, there are concerns as to who would be responsible for addressing those concerns," the official said.

After the ship first contacted the Coast Guard, a C-130 aircraft, a multi-purpose vessel and a team were dispatched to conduct a preliminary assessment of the damage and determine if there was any pollution as a result, the Coast Guard said.

A sheen was initially observed; however, the source could not be identified, it said. Overflights reported no further sighting of pollution.

A team of technical experts from the USCG Salvage Engineering Response Team, the Navy's Mobile Diving Salvage Unit One, and commercial companies assessed the vessel's structural integrity while offshore, the Coast Guard said.

Based on that assessment, the vessel was granted permission to enter the port of Honolulu zone for repairs.

Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com.