New Zealand Ferry Aratere Grounded and Refloated | Issues with Maritime Infrastructure
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- MV New Zealand Ferry Grounded
What's Going on With Shipping?
June 24, 2024
In this episode, Sal Mercogliano - a maritime historian at Campbell University (@campbelledu) and former merchant mariner - discusses the grounding of the New Zealand ferry Aratere and issues with maritime infrastructure worldwide.
#supplychain #shipping #ferry #aratere #newzealand
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🚨Just some additional links and stories provided by some viewers on this. Also, it appears that Scotland is experiencing a similar problem.🚨
www.1news.co.nz/2024/03/12/cuts-to-public-services-as-landlords-await-a-29b-tax-break/
www.stuff.co.nz/national/133286298/not-so-shipshape-a-catalogue-of-complications-for-the-cook-strait-ferries
www.reddit.com/r/nzpolitics/comments/1dmfka5/engine_parts_for_cook_strait_mega_ferries_already/
Of that $3B only $551M of it was for the new boats, which was a fixed contract, it cost around $300M to cancel the construction with Hyundai. It's estimated, to build the same boats now, it'd cost 40% more due to inflation and other cost rises. The other $2.5B was in port infrastructure maintenance, improvements, earthquake resilience and there was extra cost due to current location of the Wellington port, rather than a newly suggested location. This is all just after landlords have been given a $3B tax cut, seems like New Zealand has it's priorities in order.
Mate! You have covered this story better than NZ media could ever imagine. Informative and straight to the point! Keep it up 👍
Our media is a complete joke.
@@dallasfrost1996 And not a very funny joke at that. They're pathetic little lackeys.
Bought and paid for, by whom I don't know.
@@dallasfrost1996 Sorry but thats being way too kind.
@@wayneshilcock3027 Very easy to find this information, but it might not be who you expect
Brought back memories of the loss of the ferry Wahine in Wellington Harbour in 1968.
Has to be noted that the Cook Straight is renowned as being one of the roughest in the world, so the ferries that operate there will have had encountered more than your average sea conditions, which would impact on operational maintainence and life expectancy.
Very good point, I also mentioned this in my comment before I read yours. Have a good day.
The tides are out of sync across Cook straight, so it can be pretty entertaining out there (as someone who lived in Island Bay looking out over that ferry route, and also having sailed it on a barquentine). Make no mistake, that area is both stunningly beautiful and absolutely deadly, only good ships with good crews should be anywhere near it.
The conditions commonly encountered in Cook St are demanding indeed, but they wouldn't have contributed to the maintenance & operational problems that KiwiRail has been in the news for recently.
50kt winds are common, people don't realise how bad it is
@@Secretlyanothername I do. That was one of the reasons why I moved to Sydney about thirty something years ago.
I still find it difficult to believe there are only 5 million New Zealanders, they seem to be all over the place!
It's hard to believe until you watch Sigi's Travel Videos on UA-cam and notice all the seemingly empty land between towns!
We are, 😅😅😅😅.
We have like 500000 to 700,000 ex pat kiwis living in Aussie alone with another roughly 200,000 to 300,000 scattered around the rest of the world. Not quite Irish scale dispora but a lot considering there were only 3 million of us in the early 1970's
and when you find us. we will overwhelm you with enthusiasm and friendliness LOL
There's an old story about an Australian couple who found all the hard to reach places in the world, threw a dart and went into the back end of China to a small town that hadn't seen a travellers since before the second world war.
The Aussies got there and got quickly pointed to a New Zealand couple who got there a week before then and knew enough Mandarin to communicate with the locals.
They had a grand old time together.
I’ve been on that ship in NZ… the view from the top of the deck is worth the trip alone
That depends if you can keep the water surface BELOW you and not above!
@@randallreed9048 a Ukrainian flag… that’s getting rare. Is coke head Zelensky and his money begging regime still worth the support?
Was it parked on the shingle? 🤣
Personally I prefer to travel cook straight on bluebridge, the service, well everything’s better imo
Wanna bet the eventual replacement ferries come in in excess of the $3Bil value of the cancelled program?😂
@@dirtdevil70 Yep, nothing gets cheaper as time goes on.
Thank you Sal for another interesting video. One thing that you didn’t mention is that Cook Strait is a very rough stretch of water, they were very lucky last year when the engine failed, or whatever happened, that it was a calm day or the outcome would have been very different. Another thing that arose from that incident was that the tugs were apparently not capable of dealing with a ship of this size. This reminded me of the Wahine disaster, I watched it sink, when they also found that the local tugs were not capable of handling the situation. A couple of years later Wellington had new red tugs! A problem with the previous proposed new ferries was that there was only going to be two much larger ships which required brand new terminals and were possibly too large for Tory Channel, especially at the entry into the channel from Cook Strait. I could be wrong with what I have just written as I am not a mariner, if I am wrong please correct me. All the best everyone from Sydney Australia 🇦🇺 PS congratulations on 300k subscribers
Sal, the issue not sufficiently covered in the media, is that the revamping of the shoreside, ferry, infrastructure facilities was going to be at a huge cost and take many years. Because the two new ferries from South Korea were so much larger than the current ones, berthing, loading and discharging facilities had to have squillions of dollars thrown at them in both Picton and Wellington, in order to accommodate these huge replacements. There would have been other down-stream issues as well. It became a bit of a nightmare, when one considers that "Bigger always seems to be better" these days! Carrying railway wagons is a big deal for our connectivity also and is not an easy thing to do!
Also, there is another ferry operator across Cook Strait (Blue Bridge) that does not get into the limelight news as much as Kiwi rail does!
Again, could you kindly have a look at the ferry service between the U.K, France and the Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey. That would be terrific. Thanks for your epic contributions Sal.
As usual govt incompetence.
Smaller vessels making more frequent trips is what is needed for both the public AND to minimise the damage done by the wash going through the marlborough sounds.
This should have been simple logic,but, we here in NZ ,as in the US are governed by self serving idiots.
Expect more stories on this subject in the future.
"Squillions of dollars" - at three billion for two ferries and facilites good for 100 years, as opposed to 4 billion in tax cuts to landlords or 7.2 billion on roads to keep the government's cronies in trucking and road construction happy?
A big factor in the increasing cost of the shoreside facilities was also around changes to geotech assessments and increased seismic standards from what I understand. But the whole point of the project was more along the lines of a do it once do it right sort of approach rather than our typical incrementalist approach bodging solutions together.
@@tomsemmens6275 Dont spread the tax cuts for Landlords LIE on youtube dude. It was a simple reversal of Labour stopping a business claiming interest on borrowings to run a business. Labour sort to punish rental property owners by not allowing them to claim interest as a tax deductible - which had been in place since forever.
@@davepannekoek1562 My wife and I own seven rentals and we are going to benefit big time from this tax reversal. Still doesn't make it the most pressing issue facing the country - the money would be much better spent elsewhere. We do better than OK, we don't need more money when this lot is busy punching down the whole time by cutting funding to foodbanks - or canceling critical pieces of infrastructure like new ferries, etc.
Sal, you make it so easy to get smarter about our world. You do great work---for someone so young!
I appreciate that!
Thanks for covering this one Sal! I live on the South Island and the cancellation of the new ferries by this new government is so much worse than it seems from the outside, it was used as a political bargaining point by the incoming conservative government last year.
The replacement vessels had been ordered from Hyundai on a fixed price contract with steel costs locked in at 2021 prices, and included a lifetime service/drydock contract as we don't have drydock capacity large enough for our current ferries let alone the new larger ones (another huge issue in this country). They were diesel/electric propulsion with the capacity to run on thrusters alone for short periods of time while in the maritime protection zones of the Sounds, and also featured ship to shore power feed capability for emergency grid power to the port in a post-earthquake scenario.
The cancellation was because the new government refused to allocate the final $2billion for the project to fund the construction upgrades to the 1960s era asbestos-riddled and earthquake-damaged Port facilities at both ends of the strait. Their aim is clearly to degrade the publicly owned service and then privatise the assets like NZ conservative governments always try to do!
Another concern here is that the other large (private operated) ro-ro ferry operator "Bluebridge" were actually relying on the port upgrades as their own facilities are falling apart, and they were part of a shared use agreement with kiwirail for the new facilities!
When Aratere finally throws in the towel we will have no rail link at all between the islands, which is a really scary future for us!
Interesting - creating a private reserve for the rich and infamous?? But I am paranoid - these incidents are increasing exponentially. I am forced to ask - has the world gone nuts or as usual do money and elite interests rule the day??
.
@@dianealden9293 The former right wing government led by Teflon John Key was the template for Trump's personality politics, so New Zealand has a particularly acute case of elite interests being placed ahead of public interests, including skyrocketing homelessness as the housing market was fully opened to foreign ownership under the Don Key. Quite simply, much of New Zealand got sold off, and the aging infrastructure is now (very predictably) falling apart. But that's ok, normal people got a $6 a week tax cut, that's worth it right? They will buy a couple of rust buckets from anywhere, put new paint on them, and leave it to the next Left government to start all over again with trying to get new fit-for-purpose ships. Read up on the HMNZS Charles Upham to see how well that is likely to turn out - the Southern Ocean is not to be trifled with.
Well said, all true too.
Cancelling those two fine ships was an insane move. Yes it required a lot of capital works ashore but those facilities would then have been good for 100 years or more.
Yeah, nah bro. Yeah,nah.
No one knows what the shoreside costs were going to be - thats why it got stopped. 2 Billion is your guess only. Even Grant 'I like to spend' Robertson was concerned by the never ending price escalation. KiwiRail Board and Management have acted unprofessionally, in my view, on the replacement project. Shoreside costs should have been nailed and funded before the Ships ordered.
Found your channel about a year ago , never thought shipping could be so interesting, there is a ferry service that runs between New York State and Vermont over lake Champlain and the fairies they use are ancient , I have no idea what they’re gonna do
Here in Newfoundland and Labrador, on the Atlantic coast of Canada, there are many ferries connecting smaller island communities, 38 ports of call. The provincial government runs most of them and bought two used ferries in Europe a few years ago. They were refurbished at greater cost than budgeted and, of course, took longer than expected. Once they arrived in Newfoundland the ferries did NOT fit at the existing docks. And the refurbishment of the ferries were/are the cause of lots of downtime to fix the repairs. It's mind boggling. We need more new ferries to replace several old ones which are way beyond their life expectancy. We were a sea faring nation until we joined Canada in 1949 and the sea doesn't seem to be important anymore.
Keep voting Liberal, Peggy. And you will keep having problems. Newfoundlanders they love their Trudeau.
Gidday Gidday Sal. Thank you for your excellent video on New Zealand shipping. I'm a Kiwi working here in shipping. NZ has two ferries companies - the publicly owned KiwiRail Interislander ferries, and the privately run Bluebridge ferries. One is run by a train company, one is run by a shipping company. One is not profitable, one is profitable. One is forced to carry train carriages, one is independent. One takes taxes, one makes taxes...
It is pronounced Picton not pincton lol. I am super impressed you covered this Sal. Made my day 👍
Glad you enjoyed it
This is a huge problem in Scotland. Mainly due to the scandal of the government squandering millions on 2 new ferries which are years late.
Thanks for the additional info!
This passed me by and I'm only across the south boarder.
Sorry, didn't see this comment before mentioning it myself.
The previous owners of the shipyard messed up the designs, they also went bust and was took over by the government.
CalMac itself has an excellent safety record, its last major incident was 51 years ago in 1973.
no problems buying camper vans though haha
300k Sal!!! Been here since day 1. Now that you hit platinum maybe an updated hair style. Rugs get hugs. Thanks for everything continued success. The cook strait ain’t no joke. For a career that long plying those waters she is getting long in the tooth.
I love in NZ and love your chancel. Was so surprised to see you cover this story. Your reporting is so much more thorough than our own news. Tku for the great article. Yes come to NZ, I recommend you fly 😂
Transport is extremely politicised in New Zealand and with the recent change in government, the cancellation was not surprising in the least. The current government has decided to pour tens of billions into rural expressways, and whatever you think about that, the money has to come from somewhere. It's very frustrating getting long term commitments from the government on anything, from roading, to public transport, to walking and cycling infrastructure. It seems we're constantly becalmed with decision paralysis and ideological blindness. We desperately need both sides to come together on a twenty or thirty year plan.
As WA state resident, the issue here is down to 1) Single source supplier Vigor Marine. 2) Willful blindness on the condition of the vessels. 3) Politicians(led by Governor) who have become ship designers. 4) Going back to 1) a resistance to letting contracts out to Gulf coast builders who can build cheaper(within US pricing).
Its great to be on deck heading through the Tory Channel and into Picton, I've sailed across Cook Strait many times on Bluebridge. Proud to be a New Zealander.
I believe Bluebridge, Strait NZ, has slightly newer ships than the Interislander ferries which is owned by the government... Frankly, I would ask Stena to take over Interislander Ferries as Stena is a shipping company, KiwiRail is a government nationalized railroad... Obviously seen by all of the recent errors to replace the ferries, they were thinking in railroad terms first, not the passengers, the caravans, or the trucks...
We in British Columbia have the same problem with a aging fleet and frequent brake downs. We are also going green with some new electric ferry more wasted taxpayer dollars. Could not stay with the tried and true CNG or diesel. Can’t wait to see what these will cost to keep running in 5 years time.
Thank you for your wise words. Please tell our Politicians!
Thanks Sal for your informative video. Most people dont realise how bad this could have been. As a local who has spent both work and recreational time in the sounds, an oil spill would have destroyed millions in marine farming. The entrance to Tory channel is narrow with strong currents and extremely dangerous in bad weather, as well as the entrance to Wellington harbour. If this had happened at the wrong time, itwould have been a total loss situation.
A couple of points. There is a second ferry company that does Picton to Wellington called Bluebridge. Someone else mentioned your mispronunciation of Picton.
I did some work for the Havelock tourist people about 15 years ago, and was guided by one of the Ferry captains. He told me about the time they lost power in one engine as they approached Picton doing 20kts and the computer thought the second engine was then overloaded, so shut that engine down as well. Fortunately, they were able to reboot the system in time to slow down, but he said it was a close call. The entrance to the Tory Channel is rough, narrow, and turns sharply to port after you enter it. There are markers on the hill you line up on to enter the channel, and one of the ferries lost power part way through this manoeuvre, and it was another close call whether they grounded. They restarted the engines in time. They have had a propeller fall off, suffered countless problems. They mention kilometres of cable being added during the new steering installation just prior to this grounding, which suggests an electronic system. So I wonder if it was a computer crash? Probably still using Windows 95!
I love this channel. Love the details, Sal! Great job!
Hey Sal, great video. You should consider contacting that transportation minister. With your experience, you might have a new career or a great high-level part-time consulting gig!
Great idea
WHO: Pier not sufficient
CAIRO (AP) - The reconnected U.S.-built pier off the coast of the Gaza Strip cannot supply Palestinians with anywhere near the level of aid they need, the head of the World Health 3:13 Organization's Eastern Mediterranean region said Monday.
Dr. Hanan Balkhy made the remarks after the U.S. military began delivering aid through the floating pier again, after it was removed a second time because of rough seas. 1:32 1:33
Hi Sal. Came across this article on the local paper. Thought I just passed along. Thanks. Keep up the good work.
Being ex NZNavy and current marine rescue crew, I have been dejected at the state of the marine environment. 99% of our trade comes via the oceans. After the Rena, we still don’t have a decent off shore capable marine salvage tug in the entire country. I was offered stupid money to go back to the navy a couple of months ago, pity when I left in the late 90’s the pay was below minimum wage and crew were never the priority. The marine rescue boots on the water are volunteers and have to fundraise for everything. So much for a first world island nation.
My son has been in for 3 years. Quite well paid although fully qualified in his trade he has yet to be used in that trade because there's insufficient resources. Basically he has to find work to keep himself occupied.
Sal, I’m a Kiwi (New Zealander) and I saw the title and winced. This is going to be a tough watch with pronunciations.
HOWEVER, a few seconds in and you say Aratere pretty much bang on. I just got to the bit where you mentioned you even watched stuff to figure out the pronunciation. That’s dedication, well done, it’s appreciated.
We sort of have two pronunciations for most words, the Māori way, and the.. let’s call it colonial way. You’ve nailed the colonial way, which is what about 75% of the country would do. Roll your Rs (just a little, use your tongue to make the R sound not your jaw, almost like an L) in this case and your pronunciation will be better than that 75%.
95% of nailing the colonial pronunciation is breaking the word up in to consonant-vowel pairs and not trying to merge adjacent pairs in to one sound. Same as in Japanese.
A-ra-te-re not ara-tere.
You’ve got the vowel sound great too. Nice work.
Picton is funny but we care a lot less about mispronunciations of British place names that we copied haha.
Actually - I rewatched, the a vowel sound isn’t quite right, but good!
Try it like the “aaaaah” a dentist would say. Aaah-raaah-te-re :)
Thanks Nathan...I appreciate it.
I watched a batch of reports on the grounding so I was trying to get Aratere right but I screwed up Picton.
@@wgowshipping haha yeah. Like I say, British names we care a lot less about haha.
Demonstrate a sincere effort as you have and you’ll win over any Kiwi. Nice one!
You mentioned a couple of other issues with these boats, with poor maintenance and that. In 2013 I believe, this boat lost a propeller that was fitted without proper clearance from experts. seems like quite a sham. Nice video, found it very interesting
Very interesting. New Zealand is incredible.
Britain is also incredibly sea blind, >96% of all our exports and imports go by sea but political awareness of naval or maratime issues is essentially zero, crazy given our history!
The British government has been captured by the financial sector - and given up on actually “making” things.
aratere is now berthed at the log port in picton under maritime nz control for the time being until the investigation into the steering failing is complete. aratere spent time last month in wet dock getting new steering software and other work done. last year a interislander ferry lost power in cook stait and nearly drifted onto rocks.interislander ferry issues have been going on for many years now. i stopped useing interislander and switched to bluebridge 2 years ago and havnt looked back as i got wet inside one of the lounges on aratere when a internal water line burst.
The Alaska State Ferries are seeing similar issues with outdated vessels
Thank you for covering this incident! I had not heard of it, yet I like to get whatever news from New Zealand that I can. I do hope you get to visit there soon and learn more about their shipping issues and report back on them. Your pronunciation is good, Maori words are pronounced letter for letter as they sound. So ah-rah-TEH-reh, kye-TAH-kee, and tee-TOH-koh for the three names you mentioned.
When I was there, it was pronounced Pick-tun. We took a trip on the mailboat to all the out lying islands.
DId you hear about Scotland's replacement ferry scandal recently?Two new ferries for Caledonian Macbrayne (the state owned company that keeps the Scottish islands connected. Late and massively over budget.
Sal you need to get yourself to New Zealand - go on holiday, honestly it's one of the most beautiful country's in the world, plus great people, great culture, well set up for tourism and they play a decent type of football called Rugby (like NFL but not for pansy's that need all that padding 🤣) and their other faviourite sport is sailing!
It was not the Aratere which my wife and I used on our crossing of the Cook Strait in 2016, but it was a very enjoyable voyage from Picton to Wellington ( I think that it was on the Kaitaki).
The governance of New Zealand has been questionable over the last twenty years or so with privatisations, running down of the infrastructure, and divisive, counter productive policies (like in UK), so I am not totally surprised that things are going wrong.
New Zealand is surrounded by sea, so it is dependent on a robust maritime transport sector. I hope that they get their act together, because it is a wonderful country that deserves better.
Sal, Ditto for the British Columbia Ferry system. Once a crown corporation that was initiated by the late WAC Bennett that has seen its ups n downs from all sides of the political spectrum. They built really oddball catamarans that they eventually sold for pennys on the dollar. Used to build domestically (ironically all the various types sailed mostly problem free) then they were made a quasi crown corp and had ships built in Germany for the 2010 Olympics that have their share of issues (even before they left the manufacturer). That shipyard is now defunct.
Previously one of the *genius* moves by the provincial government was to sell all of the vessels to the Xerox corp and *lease* them back to in order to balance the province's books. Sad chapter. Lately they have been purchasing vessels for the smaller runs from a Romanian shipyard - Damen Shipyards Galati. They have established a local service / warranty depot in Victoria BC. So far the ships have been working out okay and it is definitely a big plus having a local spin to the equation. I'm kind of curious to see if this shipyard will be able to build bigger vessels as they become needed. All the local shipyards keep busy with Navy, Coast Guard work atm.
Thanks for another great video. 👍
Yeah, the "running a public service like a private corporation" thing was more for ideology than costs. The only good improvement was the food service on the ships, which is what they seem to be skimping on now (in favour of booze? WTF!). People want reliability and food that does not smell like a prison cafeteria - simple needs really. All the corporate scheming does is complicate what should be simple.
@@wyldhowl2821 Not to mention the mega bucks that 1st CEO was getting when they 1st went quasi private. Not that impressed with the White Spot food though, shows that like any other corporate entity - they'll sell their soul for a few more $$$$. White Spot on land definitely better than the Ferry food.
that's a very interesting point to make, having some guarantee of spare parts for a period of time after a ship is built - it's not very good to take on a ship when built if parts may only be around for 10-20 years - there needs to be some guarantee that parts exceed this limit or alternative replacements be in place to retrofit and upgrade
of course it be a nightmare for ship builders not be able to advance in technology, but surely they know what they have built, and if those ships are still in service, announce a bulletin when spares are about to change or be superseded much as they do in aviation
Your intro made me think you were angling for a consulting gig in NZ.
Your outro confirmed it 🤣
Problem here now Sal, is the country is short of money after the last labour government left us with a massive deficit. We don't have a lot of manufacturing here any more, as like so many other countries we now rely on China. Of the 5 million people here, probably only 4 million are working, the rest being retired or on some sort of benefit, so it's going to take a while for the economy to recover, especially after the major storm damage to infrastructure, farming etc recently. We are struggling to maintain and repair what we have now, so major purchases like purpose built ships, are, if we are being honest,- not really affordable. We have always had problems with the Cook strait ferries, with numerous companies having a crack at running them, having problems with chartered vessels then giving up. Two of these were a large high speed cat and fast monohull (vehicle and passenger capable) trying to compete, but they suffered breakdowns and speed/wake restrictions through the sounds which negated the speed advantage over the regular ferries.
When we moved from the South Island to the North Island in 1958 the main ferry was the Maori, (built 1953) and cars were craned into holds and on the rear decks, so things are much better now. I don't think things really recovered after the Wahine sank, as she was only 2 yrs old at the time, then ships started having to be chartered to fill the gap. They were even having to fly cars across for a while in Bristol Freighters . Bluebridge ferries have had their problems competing with the govt owned Kiwi Rail, (plus a few mechanical issues), but seem to be running ok at the moment. It's a tough environment as PowhiroMus mentioned, being a gap between 2 oceans, so the ships often get a thrashing.
Yet Bluebridge/Strait NZ was able to lease or acquire a ferry recently which was built in 2007, about the same age as Canada's Marine Atlantic's Blue Puttees and Highlander ferries... Connemara...
amazing. The vessel has bridge control of the engines. Dead stop and full astern are available. Steering is also possible using the twin propulsion available
Greetings from New Zealand. It's said Picton. Pic -ton.
You forgot to mention how old the Alaska ferries are. The Alaska ferry Tustamena is the oldest ocean class ferry vessel on earth. Built in 1964. The vessel is so old that it has sailing restrictions.
Hi Sal, that was an impressive well reserched video since the event happened less that a week ago.
What I would like to know is what are the emergency procedures for steering failures? Is there back up redundant rudder actuators? Is going hard astern an option to avert a collision? Could bow thrusters be used as emergency steering?
The crew did not have much time in the narrow channel to initiate any emergency procedures...but how long does it take to activate them?
Other ship incidents often state a loss of Power...but that is ambiguous in that report could mean propulsive power or electrical power.
Why not use the aviation term "loss of thrust" or "loss of propulsion"?
Considering we'll be taking the ONLY ferry across the Mississippi between Kentucky and Missouri later this week, this ferry story is a bit...inopportune. :)
As a rail enthusiast, I'm really curious about that rail ro-ro ferry. They're quite rare nowadays.
Very good report. It's a bloody debacle stuff up by Kiwi Rail and this current government and the previous ones as well.
I live IN NZ not far from the grounding of this boat, and yes, it's way overdue for all 3 ferries to be replaced. The next incident, who knows when may be more serious.
Thanks
Dali departed Baltimore today but it had no anchor on the port side and the starboard anchor has been reported to be inoperable due to damaged machinery. I thought it was illegal to operate a ship with no anchors.
In 2005 Kiwi rail was a private company. The government at the time, labour, was predicted to lose the election.
Labour had managed a budget with a massive surplus.
So rather than let National spend the money. They bought Kiwi rail for ~$700 million.
The company was destitute, old infrastructure, no upkeep.
It was valued at $80 million .
The irony being that Labour won that election anyway.
But I posted this to share just how inept and corrupt our politicians are (same as USA< basically a bickering UNI party giving an appearance of Democracy while just literally taking turns at good cop bad cop)
Yes they paid too much for it, but you left out the part where the previous private owners (an equity firm) ran the business into the ground and destroyed 100 years of public investment in NZ railways. The new public entity has struggled ever since because no govt has ever fronted up with enough cash to acquire new assets and manage it properly. In NZ, heavy trucks tear up our public roads and are subsidised by all other road users through unfair taxes.
@@laurencejenner1127 They didn't pay too much for it. They deliberately squandered tax payer money.
And the business was non profitable. That is the revenue was less than expenses
Doesn't matter who owns it, private or public. Would you pay $100 for $10 of freight delivery?
Neither would anyone else.
Do you want to be taxed $90 for each each freight delivery, so less money to feed your family, just to make others want to use kiwi rail?
No.
Yes I would like to have functioning, safe public services rather than the feeble $16 per week tax cut these clowns campaigned on. A few trinkets now with even more failing infrastructure in the future.
@@laurencejenner1127 And do you see their rural bills? Just as anti farmer as Labours were.
Thanks Sal. Another example when politicians think they know more than those in the industry to justify penny pinching. We had a solution, it wasn’t perfect, but had a significant amount of time and energy and expertise put into it. Then came the decision by a new govt to gamble on the reliability of these existing ships to save money. It is effectively an interstate on the seas, so should be kept open regardless. How much will we lose in business earnings if this is shut down. Much more than the $3 billion cost for new, reliable ships and ports.
i worked as a cabin crew on the arahura.
i remember when the propeller fell off.
We got a brand new ferry direct from China, up here in Newfoundland Canada. Unable to go into service back in June as Scheduled, if you’d like to look into that.
These remind me of those BC Ferries that do the long runs between Prince Rupert and Port Hardy - they are ro-ro but have a bow more like cruise ships.
Anyway, BC Ferries is I believe larger than Washington State's but has similar issues trying to run the fleet reliably as it ages.
Just to add that not only were the contracts for the new ferries already in place, the NZ government is contractually obligated to complete the purchase so they will still be paying for the new ferries but will not take delivery of them, instead selling them from the shipyard after construction, presumably at a steep discount to whoever purchases them.
Would have been nice if that article about Washington State Ferries showed a picture of an actual Washington State Ferry. The picture is of one of the three King County Water Taxis.
Great coverage of this, Im watching from Australia and the media is drip feeding dribs & drabs with a political spin, Ive been on the Interislander and its a beautiful journey and the staff are awesum. NZ seems to be having a few infrastructure issues right now both north & south Islands
Well said Sal!
The Wahini sank in the Wellington Harbour in a storm.
For your interest... and, being a day later, probably too late... there's a history of a New Zealand ferry disaster in 1965 that resulted in the deaths of 35 people and the loss of the ferry. The ferry Wahine ran aground at the mouth of Wellington Harbour during a storm.
A few comments on here about the situation in Scotland. Many ferries run lifeline services but there is government incompetence (at best) in procurement. It's stretched the fleet beyond economic lifespan and is hurting tourism and local economies. It's a real shambles.
Only 2 countries in the world that have no snakes of which New Zealand is one, Ireland is the other. NZ is one of the safest countries in the world and one of the most beautiful as well
The New Zealand government knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing. They were advised that scheduled maintenance was due, but because of their parsimony they differed this to an unspecified date. Resulting from this stupidity, a fuse blew, the ship lost it's steering and beached on its voyage to Pccton on the South Island - Te Wai Ponamu. Navigating through the Harbour entrance/exit is tricky at the best of times, made especially difficult by the inconvenient placement of Barretts Reef. This tore the bottom out of an overnight ferry arrival from Lyttleton encountered a Hurricane strength storm. The ferry, Whahine hit the reef, was holed and lent severely to Port. The ship was damaged beyond recovery and returned to servive, so for several years, overseas contractors cut up the ship into manageable pieces to be seafreighted to some far away place to be melted down to become Toyota's. On a clear day with sunshine and calm waters, the three hour voyage from Wellington accross Cook Straight to Picton in the Marlborough Sounds is a wonderful sea voyage. But when Cooks wild Straight is angry, it's a most uncomfortable voyage and seasickness is a painful price to pay. The Ferrys were built to handle seas like this and they have for years made this voyage mostly without any serious incident. Yet there is always the exception, the one that turns nasty, takes lives and wrecks ships. Tour this into context, the last such incident was the Whahine disaster in 1968. Since then, there have been only minor instances where a Ferry has glanced a wharf while tying up. Much like a mild Fender bender 8f the Ferry was an Automobile. Bit this current SNAFU could have been prevented if the New Zealand government, the Ferrys owners had made better decisions at the time rather than preferring to spend public money to advance their own political objectives. 8t is what it is though. The government took a gamble and we all lost. Kia Ora Mai.
Sal: Do the cabotage/Jones Act laws prohibit US operators from buying a used ferry that has been built outside of the United States to replace a worn-out US-made ferry ?
Yes. New Zealand ferries are however all imported.
I would love for you to do a deep dive on the Washington State Ferries.
As a kiwi good to see international perspective
Thanks Sal
It's a thing on Drachinifel when ships make abrupt turns to cite Japanese torpedo boats as the Russian Baltic fleet claimed in Danish water 1905. So guess they're back in New Zealand.
That’s a fast ferry also!great work on your side Dr Sal
We only got Alaska Marine Highway here for large ferries. I think the Mv Cape Henlopen is the largest on the east coast outside of the Cat? There was the Mv Scotia Prince and Scandinavia which were the only large European ferries on the east coast. I still think a service from New London to Jacksonville will make a killing just modify a Empire State VII class ro-ro to full ro ro and you could compete with the Auto Train!
Meanwhile Stena Danica was built in 1983 and is still going strong.
The plan is to replace Danica and Jutlandica with two world first fully electrical large scale ferrys with a size of around 200m.
It is not certain that Danica will be replaced though as she is still very popular on the Gothenburg - Fredrikshavn line.
Danica is a little bit of Stena Lines baby as she has been on the same line since 1983 which is Stenas original Ferry line.
I mean they still have plans to somehow get the original HSS Ferry back online which is Stena Carisma.
Abd that was a black hole even when Oil was cheap.
One must consider that NZ is a very small country in terms of population and tax revenue. Its less than the city of Sydney. So when the minister says, "budgetary constraints" means they simply can't afford it. Ferry services will never be money makers, and always run at a deficit and the ability to absorb these losses is the problem. Privatising them does not fix the problem. NZ's total GDP is only a third of the US defence budget alone. They have already basically done away with an Air Force and their navy is tiny. So it's a big problem for them. They have no exportable natural resources, and many times its been suggested that NZ merge economies with Australia. But resistance to this is strong in NZ.
New Zealand can not afford to dumb down sufficiently to merge with Australia
Talking about manufacturing build dates. This is a big deal in New Car dealerships. I worked at a Ford dealership that was part of a 20 dealership corporation. They were sued twice becouse they sold or serviced a car that the spare was over 5 years old . 1 , they installed a spare for a customer that had a flat. The 2nd was a used car sale. They later on had a flat , installed the spare, and drove around for a few days before it blew out, killing a teenager . This happened before my employment, but it instituted a policy that any car or truck that came in for service , trade in or used car 5 years or older. We in service had to document the DOT build code. Which is in weeks and years . Example DOT 3218, 32 week , ( Aug. ) year 2018 . August 2018.
It sounds like the NZ powers that be are trying to get rid of maintenance crews. Blaming them for not having a 30 year old ship in tip top shape while also running a grueling schedule is a good way to make them quit!
At least the grounding wasn't followed by sinking like the Costa Concordia.
But a Soviet cruise ship, the 20,000 ton M/V "Mikhail Lermontov", DID sink in 1986 in the Marlborough Sounds area about 30 km distant.
@@awuma all because of the harbour master!
As a NZer, I find the situation as an embarrassing.
The cost of taking ones private vehicle across the water let alone the guarantee it'll get there is another thing.
Too many oxygen thiefs making wrong decisions.
pretty embarrassing to appear on your report for this issue but appreciate the amplification because this new government, which is extremely austerity-focused and anti-public services, won't (re)act until their noses are rubbed in it.
End of life for the current ferries is 2029 so if we don't get new ones until early 2030s I guess we'll be without them for a while.
There is definitely still a role for coastal shipping here. For one thing the land transport network (road and rail) has proven vulnerable to natural disaster, of which we expect a lot more in the future.
I would like you to expound on the hazards in the Cook Straight. My understanding is its a very dangers place.
Picton was ok in the eighteenth century but they should have developed a dock on the Blenheim beaches to avoid the worst of the Cook strait and shorten the journey.
What were the exact actions of the Captain and Crew in the minutes leading up to the Aratere Grounding..?
As a pilot we understand that every accident is the fault of the pilot - either through misaction or misreaction. In the Navy when a ship runs aground the Captain is releaved of command - as either he failed to give the correct commands, or he failed to train his crew to deal with the incident. What were the actions of the Captain and crew of the Aratere in the minutes leading up to the grounding?
Was discussing the Aratere accident with another ferry master with decades experience on that run. He believes strongly it was a complete crew failing, that the bridge personal and those standing watch lost situational awarness, failed to follow correct SOP, and or panicked and that it is a PR media cover up blaming machine rather than man.
The Master's thoughts were that even with a claimed steering failure, there was ample time to use reverse thrust and anchors to prevent a grounding, if the Captain and crew were alert and well trained...
Signal General Warning?
Activate Emergency steering?
Reverse engines?
Drop anchors?
Were these and other actions done?
What is the timeline of the actions of the Captain and Crew in the minutes leading up to the grounding?
Good luck getting to NZ! Sounds fun!
Why weren't they looking where they were going.
Steering problem?
Select reverse
The other ferries were second hand when we got them on lease from Europe
Seeing this globally, most governments have looked to social programs, not infrastructure, mainly because fixing roads and piping doesn't net votes. However, when you let these critical services fail, you see a significant drop in services. For example, I am sure Calgary knew its main water line was failing, but it only focused on it once it failed. It is evident that the city has not considered the failure of the roads, water and sewer for years but spent millions on various paintings and sculptures that do nothing for the public. This is basically why ventures like going net zero will not work. Governments never upgraded the infrastructure, and just pulling the plug on natural gas means millions will freeze because the grid hasn't been upgraded to support electricity demands.
Unfortunately, the new incoming government decided tax cuts for the wealthy and landlords were more important than the replacement ferries the pervious government had ordered, so they recently cancelled the order for two new ferries.
We don’t spend enough on any US infrastructure. We have an attitude of putting it off till tomorrow instead of being proactive. This attitude leads to disaster which are far more expensive. Don’t have any solutions because profits always come before safety in the US
"Dont seem to have a cohetent maritime policy" Exactly.🥝🇳🇿
At least it didnt crash into and collapse a multi billion dollar bridge.
The Dali arrived in Norfolk yesterday...
And Matson shipping from NZ to the Cook islands !!
Got to get you advising the NZ Govt, Sal. What's the chance of getting you on the next flight?
Forgot to use the bow thrusters to steer when the rudder failed?
And it only had a new steering system installed 2 wks ago and put back into service
It's not only the 🤬 shipping. politicians like to flaunt money on prestige projects like graving a whole train station (S21 in Stuttgart, Germany) and are then "so sorry", because for really important infrastructure is now money left…
Well, at least the front didn't fall off.
Politician: we will prosecute you for not doing a better job. Shipper: ahh you would not give us the money to fix the problem. Politician: we totally support the transportation industry. Shipper: you cancelled the funding for new ships so we have to use old parts to keep the ships working. Politician: how short is the populations memory span, oh dam, when is the election.
Many many many decades ago I was planning to go to New Zealand for a driving vacation. At that time you could rent a car on one island but could not take it to the other island, they would just have a vehicle waiting for you. Guess even back then there was a shortage of spots on the ferries, but I guess it made sense, just ship the persons and not the car.
For some reason this vessel is not using the Tory Channel short cut. Perhaps the helm issues have been around for a while?
This is a great excuse to privatize more public assets
KiwiRail was privatised, then the next government bought it back at an inflated price. A political term is only 3 years in NZ, so the government philosophy changes every six to nine years on average.
I have some sympathy for not privatising government assets though as they are usually asset mined and they are also structured in a way that encourages bureaucracatic practices. Far better is deregulation or incentives to enable start ups to compete.
The NZ ferries normally go through Tory channel. However the Aratere seems to have been going through the Queen Charlotte heads which is a lot longer. Tory channel is narrow. Maybe they weren’t risking Tory channel for some reason.
They were trying to push the north Island away from the South Island.