Yet another Interislander ferry breakdown leaves hundreds stranded on the wrong island

Hundreds of passengers have been stranded on the wrong side of Cook Strait in the wake of a month of inter-island ferry disruption.

Normally six ships ply the strait between Picton and Wellington. As it stands, Bluebridge and Interislander have just one operating passenger ship each.

Breakdowns, servicing, cyclones, and an especially busy summer have seen multiple sailings cancelled over February. Re-bookings have often not been available for another month.

Customers have been left with the choice of either abandoning their travel plans or, if stuck on the wrong side, abandoning their vehicles until they can make time to collect them again.

READ MORE:
* Ferry cancellations continue to hamper Cook Strait travel
* Cook Strait ferry the Kaitaki to run without passengers for another week at least
* Interislander adds extra ferry after Kaiarahi failure

This week, the situation worsened after Interislander ferry Kaiarahi experienced an engineering issue on Monday night, forcing the cancellation of sailings for “the next few days”, according to the Interislander website.

Sitting at the Interislander terminal in Picton on Tuesday afternoon, Auckland couple John and Beth Stevens were waiting to find out if they could get on a ferry that night after spending the last week and thousands of dollars stuck in the top of the South Island.

“We’ve been stranded since last Tuesday and we couldn’t get a booking until tomorrow (Wednesday) so we’ve had to pay for extra accommodation for over a week.

“It’s cost us a lot of money, because you have to take whatever’s available, you can’t really pick and choose,” Beth Stevens said.

The couple said they were desperate to get back north as they were due to take possession of the keys to their new house at the end of the week, even if it meant finding alternative, more expensive routes.

“We’ve already been cancelled and rebooked, cancelled and rebooked, so now we’re thinking of driving our own car down to Christchurch and flying up to Auckland and getting a relocation firm to get our car back sometime, because we’ve got to get back home, and we don’t have insurance, so it’ll come out of our pocket.

“The issue is thousands of dollars we are spending because we can’t get back. We feel abandoned, we’re on tenterhooks … will we get on the next ferry, tomorrow, the next day?

“It really is a terrible mess, It’s not a very good luck for New Zealand at all,” Beth Stevens said.

Nelson resident Ange Whitlam, her partner, and youngest daughter were one of many families trapped on the wrong island with few alternative options.

“We came over to Wellington to drop our daughter off for her first year at university. Now we are stuck,” Whitlam said in an email.

“We took two days unpaid leave and it looks like we are going to be taking a lot more. The earliest booking we can find is the end of March.

“So to sum it up, we are not getting any wages, we have no money to pay for accommodation, and we are stuck here for a month.”

Are you affected by the ferry disruption? Email news@dompost.co.nz

Problems started at the end of January when Interislander ferry Kaitaki lost power and drifted close to the Wellington shoreline. Currently, it was a freight-only service until such a time as it was deemed safe enough to carry passenger traffic.

Two weeks later Aratere lost power near the mouth of Tory Channel. It quickly resolved the issue and took the northern entrance into Queen Charlotte Sound, arriving two hours later than scheduled.

Then, just three weeks after entering service as Bluebridge’s newest vessel, the Connemara suffered engine failure on the way to Picton and was moored up awaiting parts from overseas.

All up, with Connemara out of action until at least Wednesday and Strait Feronia in Sydney for dry dock maintenance until March 24, Bluebridge was down to one ship.

For Interislander, the Aratere was the only ship that wasn’t freight only.

For Aucklander Nani Conforte, Interislander’s problems with the Kaiarahi meant her car was stuck in the South Island with no option of getting out.

“I’m going to have to leave my car in Blenheim, fly to Auckland and come back and pick it up one day, which will set me back at least $700 as there’s almost no tickets left until next month.”

Interislander’s website notification to passengers said they were still working on relocating passengers booked on Kaitaki to Aratere sailings, while Bluebridge’s ferry timetable showed no indication that Connemara was out of commission.