Jack Tame: The Interislander ferry situation could've been so much worse

How much worse could it have been? 

I don’t want to speak too soon. A refloating mission is underway. But from what we know at this stage, KiwiRail, the Interislander, and New Zealand might have just escaped a much, much more serious disaster.  

The Aratere ferry departed Picton last night and from what we understand about the timeline, almost immediately lost steering. Within fifteen minutes it had run aground. 

There are 47 people onboard. Most of them are crew. All of them are in lifejackets. Most importantly, all of them are safe. And for now, at least the ferry is watertight. We wait for high tide and the impending rescue operation. 

It’s bad. But again, my reaction is strangely one of tempered relief, in that we may have just dodged a far greater disaster. Imagine if the ferry had lost steering further out in the Sounds and run aground late at night. Imagine if it hadn’t been perfectly still and calm. Imagine if it was full of passengers —school holidays— kids. Imagine if it hadn’t stayed watertight. Imagine if it got into trouble at a vital point in Cook Straight entering Wellington Harbour. There are surely moments on the journey where even if alarm was raised, emergency vessels and tugboats might not have the time to scramble and save the stricken ship. 

We could be waking this morning to news of a maritime disaster in one of the most beautiful parts of New Zealand that made the Rena look like nothing. And most importantly, of course, people could’ve died.  

The state and the future of the ferries has been a political football. The previous government signed a fixed-price contract to build two new ferries. But after the Inter-island Resilience Project exploded in its projected costs, the new government declined KiwiRail’s request for extra funding. In parliament, as recently as a few days ago, Transport Minister Simeon Brown was highly critical of KiwiRail's maintenance of the current fleet.  

But last night’s event will obviously bring all of this into sharp focus. Is this an event that will justify new vessels and the new port infrastructure, after all?  

Let’s hope the ferry and her passengers can be safely refloated. But clearly the status quo is unsustainable. And just because we may have avoided the absolute worst this occasion, doesn’t mean the next time won’t be different. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at be.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
How much worse could it have been? I don't want
to speak too soon. A refloating mission is underway as
we go to wear but from what we know at
the stage, key we rail the inter islander, and honestly,
New Zealand might have just escaped a much, much, much
more serious disaster. So the other Teddy Fairy departed Picton

(00:37):
last night, and from what we understand about the timeline,
it almost immediately lost steering, so within about fifteen minutes
it had run aground. There are forty seven people on board,
most of them are crew, all of them are in
life jackets. Most importantly, all of them are safe and
for now at least the Fairy is water tight. As

(01:02):
of this minute, we are one minute past high tide
and picton high Tea and picked them was nine oh
eight am. It's currently nine oh nine. There are tugboats
on the scene and a refloating effort is underway. It's bad,
but again my reaction, again not wanting to speak too soon,
is at this stage one of tempered relief, and we

(01:23):
may have just dodged a far greater disaster. Imagine if
the Fairy had lost steering further out in the sounds
and had run aground late last night. Imagine if it
hadn't been perfectly still and calm. Imagine if it was
full of passengers school holidays kids. Imagine if it hadn't

(01:43):
stayed water tight. Imagine if it got into trouble at
a vital point and cook straight entering Wellington Harbor. There
are surely moments on that journey where, even if alarm
was raised, emergency vessels and tugboats might not have the
time to scramble and save the stricken ship. We could
be waking this morning to news of a maritime disaster

(02:04):
in one of the most beautiful parts of New Zealand,
a disaster that you know, makes the arena look like
a mere spilt cup of coffee. And most importantly, of course,
people could have been injured, people could have died. The
state and the future of the Fairies has been a
political football. The previous government signed a fixed price contract

(02:27):
to build two new Fairies, but after the Enter Island
Resilience project exploded in its projected costs, the new government
declined Kei Wei Rail's request for extra funding and Parliament
is recently it's just a couple of days ago, Transport
Minister Simeon Brown was highly critical of Kiwi Rail's maintenance
of the current fleet. Last night's event will obviously bring

(02:50):
all of this into sharp focus. Is this an event
that will justify new vessels in the new port infrastructure?
After all, let's hope the Fairy and her passengers can
be safely refloated, however long that takes. But clearly the
status quo is unsustainable. And just because we may have

(03:10):
avoided the absolute worst on this occasion, it doesn't mean
the next time won't be different. Jack d Right, Oh,
we have just this second got a message through from
the Marlboro District Council and from the authorities who are
working on the attempts to refloat the Artitidy this morning

(03:33):
they have abandoned those attempts. So in the last couple
of minutes they have decided to abandon those attempts and
instead send down divers to gather more information about how
badly the vessel has run aground. As it happens, my
beloved Auntie Barb Tame is a resident of nearby Waikawa.

(03:54):
As soon as I saw the news this morning. I
flicked her a message and she said, well, where do
you think I'm going. I'm going to take my bike
down the road get a view of the refloating effort
as the tugboats head out into the sounds today, and
she's with us. Now, Hi, Andy, Barb, it's Jack here.
Can you hear me?

Speaker 3 (04:08):
Hi? Yeah, Hijack, I can hear you loud and clear.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Hey, so where are you at the moment?

Speaker 3 (04:13):
So I'm with half of Victim up on a lookout
looking out over the over the sounds and over the ship.
Good views, but yeah, not a lot happening, and not
going to be a lot happening, as he just said.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, well, so we've just we've just heard of abandoned
the refloating efforts for now. But what can you see
around the around the art teedy itself?

Speaker 3 (04:34):
So a couple of tugs I think, few pre preasure
boats having a bit of a look. But yeah, just
a couple of the local tugs which I thought looked
like they were hooking up to do something. But maybe
that's all all finished.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah, and whereabouts it has it run aground? Is it
like a straight shot for picton?

Speaker 3 (04:57):
Well, it's doing very violently right instead of heading out
into the sound and then turning right to get to Wellington.
So it's very very close. It's great viewing for all
the pector knights up here. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, what are the conditions like there at the moment?

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Just starting to drizzle, but it's perfectly still in calm
and great skies, but perfect, perfect conditions for whatever they're attempting.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Next, how are people feeling about seeing seeing a vessel
of that size run aground?

Speaker 3 (05:29):
What is a wee at? God snacked? But yeah, I haven't.
I sort of haven't really talked to talk to any
of the locals up here. I'm not local long enough myself.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah, I know that works. It's like you've been there
five minutes until you've been there forty years.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
But I mean there's obviously been a bit of concern
about the state of the fairies and things. I mean,
given given it such an area of natural beauty. You know,
is that do?

Speaker 3 (05:56):
I mean?

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Do you feel kind of anxious about about efforts to
refloat it?

Speaker 3 (06:01):
I feel yes, it could be a big Yeah, that
could be a real worry. I always feel anxious when
I went on at myself not that long ago, and
there were various issues. So and I think all the
local people, you others still pretty much the same. Are
you guaranteed to get there?

Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (06:19):
And so.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
Have they have someone announced to you guys that they've
abandoned it or the news?

Speaker 3 (06:26):
I think that might be me because nobody's Yeah, I
don't know if anybody's I'm sure they're all listening to you, Jack,
but I'm not sure if anybody knows that yet.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
That's good. You make sure everyone's got their iHeartRadio one
so they can get the very latest.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
It's a bit wet now. I might have to go
home and come back later.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
Can you just just one last thing from your vantage
point for the people who are on board the vessel
at the moment, If they're needing to get people on
and off safely, is that how complicated do you think
that's going to be.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
Well, it's very slat and calm, so you know the
back end of the ship that's poking out into the
sound a bit. So whatever they do with people, I'm
sure they can work out. But it's not a matter
of just flopping off the front and down onto the beach.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, it's up into the sound. Hey, thank you so much,
and yeah, I hope everything's okay today and obviously we
really hope that they can get it back up and
floating without any damage or anything like that. Thank you
so do.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
I okay, see you soon.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
That's my auntie Barb Tame, who is joined by half
of picton overlooking the Marlborough Sounds. Is that if it
to work out exactly what's going to happen with the
Utter Teddy into island, a faery continues this morning, we're
going to keep you up to speed with the very
latest from the authorities as that comes through this morning.
So at the moment, authorities say they want to put

(07:46):
divers in the water, they want to have a really
good look at the hull of the ship in the daylight.
That they want to observe the vessel Arter Teddy as
she goes through the full tide, just to see what
sort of level of buoyancy she's got. That's come from
the Marlboro District Council Mayor Nadine Taylor, who's among those
who's been sitting in on a morning briefing on the situation,
say that the divers are going to be investigating the

(08:09):
seabed underneath the vessel as well. Quote they want to
understand exactly where the hell is touching the sea bed
and get a good understanding of the underlying ground she's
sitting on, says Nelson District Council MEA Nadine Taylor. Like
I say, we'll bring you up to speed with any
updates as soon as they come through.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or
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