Wellington harbour cargo ship breakdown: Vessel stranded in channel after power failure

The Shiling container ship has lost power in Wellington's main shipping channel. Photo / Daran Ponter

A cargo ship has broken down in Wellington’s main shipping channel after losing power, with social media users joking trouble with the Cook Strait ferries had now spread to container vessels.

Wellington harbourmaster Grant Nalder said the Shiling container ship had been departing Wellington for Napier this morning when it had a power failure on board.

With its power out, the Shiling then drifted out of the main channel before putting two anchors down and pulling itself to a halt.

Two tugboats were also standing by it.

“So it’s okay where it is,” Nalder said.

“It’s floating heavily, the tide’s coming in, so that’s not a problem.”

Engineers are working to fix the boat but it is not yet known when that will be completed, Nalder said.

“Whatever the issue might be, when we get an update from them, we’ll reassess what’s going to happen with it.”

With the ship outside the main channel, other vessels were able to transit in and out of Wellington although the channel had been restricted to only one ship travelling in and out at once.

But with not much other shipping around at the moment it was not causing delays, Nalder said.

With mechanical issues bedevilling the Cook Strait ferries at the moment, Nalder said it isn’t uncommon for ships to have issues like power outages.

“Obviously we don’t like it happening in sensitive parts of the harbour, but it is something that does happen from time to time.”

“These ships do a lot of miles around the world and occasionally there are problems.”

Ships had regular maintenance regimes as a result and always did engine tests before coming or leaving harbours, he said.

It comes as Interislander’s Kaitaki ferry resumed passenger services earlier this week after effectively being out of action for more than two months.

On January 28, the ship declared a mayday with 864 people on board when it lost power in Cook Strait and started drifting towards Wellington’s south coast.

After being given the all-clear to take passengers again for the first time in five weeks, Kaitaki was back sailing for less than 24 hours before a problem with its gearbox was discovered on March 4.

Interislander executive general manager Walter Rushbrook said the gearbox repair has gone well.

“The Kaitaki repair was complicated, requiring a particular type of metal for the gearbox that was manufactured and shipped from Germany, along with specialist technical support from the Netherlands. The gearbox failure was a surprise, given it was overhauled late last year in drydock.”

Two new mega-ferries are being built at Hyundai-Mipo Dockyard in South Korea to replace the increasingly unreliable Interislander fleet. They are due to arrive in 2025 and 2026.