Dire Strait: Maritime NZ raised safety concerns before Interislander ferry mayday call

Maritime New Zealand raised concerns about safety and maintenance with KiwiRail’s Interislander fleet in the months before the Kaitaki ferry lost power in Cook Strait.

But the details of those concerns have been kept secret to maintain trust between the watchdog and KiwiRail in the interests of improving safety.

Maritime New Zealand chief executive officer Kirstie Hewlett said questions were raised after KiwiRail chief executive Peter Reidy rejoined the state-owned enterprise in August 2022.

The response from Reidy and the board was positive, she said at a meeting of Wellington’s Regional Transport Committee, which is made up of elected members from councils across the region.

“They started carrying out conversations with us and were also actively doing work and looking at some of those issues and then the Kaitaki incident occurred,” Hewlett said.

The Kaitaki narrowly avoided disaster in January this year when it lost power with 864 people on board and issued a mayday call. In the end, enough power was able to be restored for the ferry to limp back to Wellington Harbour.

Wellington City Councillor Iona Pannett told the meeting she understood Wellington Hospital was on standby for mass casualties during the Kaitaki incident.

The power cut has raised serious questions about the state of the Interislander ferry fleet and maritime emergency response capability.

Greater Wellington Regional Council chairman Daran Ponter asked Hewlett for details of the concerns Maritime New Zealand had earlier raised, but she declined to elaborate.

“We actually want to be able to work openly with operators of vessels and so if we’re actually releasing deficiencies, then there’s more risk that operators will hide things from us or not work with us,” Hewlett said.

“So actually, to improve safety, it’s really important that we have a trusted relationship and sometimes even some of those deficiencies might disclose commercial information.”

KiwiRail Interislander operations general manager Duncan Roy said the ferries were highly regulated and audits were conducted regularly to make sure they are compliant.

The Interislander valued its co-operative relationship with Maritime New Zealand, Roy said.

“Any issues Maritime New Zealand may have raised with Interislander during any of its regular audits will have been addressed, or there will be a plan to address these to Maritime New Zealand’s satisfaction, before we are cleared to sail.

“Maritime New Zealand approved the renewal of Interislander Document of Compliance, the marine version of a WoF, just over two weeks ago.”

Maritime New Zealand is now undertaking an investigation into the Kaitaki breakdown as well as an audit of KiwiRail’s planned maintenance systems.

The Herald has previously revealed a Maritime New Zealand probe in the month after the mayday call found nine non-conformity issues at Interislander.

Reidy said these findings were “not ideal”, in a briefing to ministers on March 3.

Some of these problems had been resolved at the time and others were to be addressed as part of a three-month plan agreed with Maritime New Zealand. The Interislander stressed that none of the findings put the safety of passengers at risk and ships remained safe to operate while the issues were remedied.

Wellington City Councillor Iona Pannett said safety needs to be put ahead of the cost of maritime emergency response capability. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Offshore emergency response capability was also discussed at the committee meeting.

No emergency towing vessel is on standby in New Zealand to help large ships in strife and it’s unknown how the harbour tugs sent Kaitaki’s mayday call would have fared should their assistance have been required.

Associate Transport Minister Kiri Allan has expedited urgent advice on New Zealand’s ability to respond to a maritime disaster and this advice is expected next month.

Maritime New Zealand incident response deputy chief executive Shelley Tucker said they were in talks with stakeholders on a range of options.

There was a particular focus on solutions for Cook Strait in the first instance, she said.

Options included bolstering capacity on existing vessels through training and specialist equipment such as towing ropes, which could buy time before an emergency towing vessel arrived.

Another option was supporting ports to invest in tugs with emergency towing capability. This would mean vessels have a day job rather than just remaining on standby, which has previously been touted as making more financial sense.

“There’s no perfect solution to the issues we’re talking about here, no silver bullet,” Tucker said.

Wellington City Council councillor and committee member Iona Pannett said the cost of a solution should not be put ahead of safety.

“We don’t want cost to come into it because if 100 people die in a maritime accident, that is clearly unacceptable.”

Pannett asked whether the public could be confident of the safety of the ferries while bureaucrats and politicians worked out what to do.

Maritime New Zealand’s position was that as a regulator, it can never guarantee safety but it was not aware of major non-conformities on board the Interislander ferries.

Porirua Mayor and committee member Anita Baker said the lack of emergency towage was a major health and safety issue.

“I just don’t want this to come back and bite all of us, safety is the most important condition,” Baker said.

Two new ferries are being built to replace the current Interislander fleet. They are scheduled to come into service in 2025 and 2026.