This article was originally published in February 2023, just days after the emergency. It has been updated ahead of today’s sentencing, set to take place this afternoon at the Wellington District Court.
Mayday
The first sign something wasn’t right with the Interislander’s Kaitaki ferry was when the lights flickered, but it wasn’t until life jackets were being handed out that fear crept in. One passenger said the Wahine disaster was on the mind of every Kiwi on board.
At 4.55pm on Saturday, January 28, 2023, KiwiRail advised Maritime New Zealand the ferry had reported engine problems.
Unlock all articles by subscribing to this international offer
All Access Weekly
Herald Premium, Viva Premium, The Listener & BusinessDesk
Ten minutes later the ship issued a mayday call with 864 people on board. All four engines had shut down in the middle of a roaring southerly in Cook Strait.
Open up the latest news from Wellington
Get daily Wellington headlines straight to your inbox.
KiwiRail revealed this was caused by a leak in the engine cooling system, which resulted in a loss of pressure.
This was detected by sensors and the engines shut down automatically to protect them from overheating.
Hundreds of people on board a ship drifting towards Wellington’s rocky shoreline was a nightmare scenario for those who had been battling to keep the Interislander’s ageing and increasingly unreliable fleet running.
Regional harbourmaster Grant Nalder was at home in Newlands thinking about firing up the pizza oven when he got the call from his staff that the Kaitaki was in trouble.
He hit the phones and made his way to the harbour signal station overlooking Breaker Bay.
Nalder’s voice was calm and steady on the other end of the phone as he fielded calls about what had happened.
“They were drifting, they’ve got an anchor down, and they declared a mayday,” he told the Herald as the emergency unfolded.
Owhiro Bay Parade was cordoned off the day of the incident. Photo / Adam Ray
A mayday is an internationally recognised distress signal and made it clear just how dire the situation was.
Nalder said a mayday call was the most serious of radio calls and was only made if people’s lives were in imminent danger.
“It was a scenario that we’d talked about, but never really wanted to see. It wasn’t good.”
A mass rescue plan was activated and a special response team was stood up.
Six vessels made their way to the scene - the Interislander’s Aratere ferry, Lady ElizabethIV, two harbour tugs, a pilot boat, and a fishing boat.
Five rescue helicopters were called, three of which were brought to Wellington Airport and two were on standby in Palmerston North and Taranaki.
Police were in charge of the onshore operation to find and take care of passengers and crew if necessary.
A cordon was put in place at Owhiro Bay Pde leading towards Red Rocks.
Wellington Cross Country Vehicle Club, one of the largest 4WD clubs in the country, was called in to help.
Club captain Duncan Grocott said about 30 vehicles made their way to the south coast and 50 remained on standby.
He grabbed blankets and woollen hats, while others filled up flasks of hot water.
It was an uneasy feeling waiting and wondering how they were going to get people off the ship before it hit the rocks, he said.
Transport Minister Michael Wood had to pivot from the Auckland floods to the emerging crisis in Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Michael Wood was Transport Minister at the time and had spent the day out in the community dealing with the Auckland floods.
By 5.30pm on Saturday Wood was in a Zoom meeting with Waka Kotahi officials to discuss the Auckland crisis.
The meeting was interrupted by his office, which KiwiRail had alerted about the Kaitaki.
He immediately pivoted from the crisis in Auckland to the emerging crisis in Wellington with grave concern.
The ship is steadied
Lorna Johnson was on the Kaitaki’s 2.15pm sailing from Picton with her husband and two grandchildren.
The conditions were rough, which is not unusual for Cook Strait, and passengers were vomiting well before a mayday call was issued.
She said the first sign that something was wrong was when the lights flickered.
“It suddenly went very quiet and I looked at my husband and he looked at me and I said, ‘have the engines stopped?’”
Soon after, a piercing alarm sounded. The passengers were familiar with this sound after completing a drill less than half an hour earlier.
But this time the captain announced over the loudspeaker it was a real emergency.
Passengers were told the engines had lost power and as a precaution, they should gather at their assembly points.
Johnson said everyone was calm. Then there was a further announcement that passengers should put on their life jackets.
“At that point, people did start to look alarmed. I certainly started to feel alarmed at that point because they don’t tell you to put the life jackets on for nothing.”
The Kaitaki’s anchors made a mechanical grating sound as they were lowered to steady the ship, Johnson said.
The ferry drifted about one nautical mile before its anchors managed to stabilise it in 30m of water off Sinclair Head.
An announcement was made over the loudspeaker that the anchors were holding and help was on the way.
“That was very reassuring because we were all thinking at that point if we end up in a lifeboat in the middle of the Cook Strait in a 100km/h southerly, that’s not a nice prospect,” Johnson said.
“I would say every single Kiwi on that boat, and myself included, all had the Wahine in our heads because we all knew where we were, we all knew there was a southerly, we could all see the coast quite clearly.”
The sinking of the Wahine ferry in 1968 was New Zealand’s worst modern maritime disaster. Fifty-one people lost their lives that day.
Below deck on the Kaitaki, the crew had managed to isolate the leak in the engine cooling system and restore power to the ship.
At about 7pm all four engines were able to be restarted and passengers were told the ferry could slowly make her way back to the harbour.
The Kaitaki arrived in Wellington at about 9pm accompanied by the other vessels keeping watch over it.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
An ageing and unreliable fleet
At the time of the incident, the contract with a South Korean shipyard to build two new rail-enabled mega ferries was still in place, with KiwiRail expecting them to arrive in 2025 and 2026.
After the mayday call, Michael Wood said the Government recognised the crucial role the Cook Strait ferries played in New Zealand’s supply chain and said many Kiwis would be concerned by the breakdown of the Kaitaki.
The then-Transport Minister blamed previous governments for failing to plan for the long term by neglecting crucial infrastructure investments.
He pointed to the significant investment his government had made for the Interislander’s new mega ferries and portside infrastructure.
But with last year’s election came a new National-led Government, and the scrapping of the new ferries.
“The Government remains committed to a resilient, safe and reliable Cook Strait connection, but the cost of this project has almost quadrupled since 2018 to approximately $3b,” she said.
Only a fifth of the total cost was now associated with the core project of replacing the ageing three ferries, she said.
“Ministers do not have confidence that there will not be further increases and are concerned about the continued significant cost blowouts and the changing nature of the investment they are being asked to make.
“Furthermore, agreeing to KiwiRail’s request would reduce the Government’s ability to address the cost pressures that are impacting on New Zealanders, fund other essential projects and get the Crown’s books back in order.”
It’s been far from plain sailing for KiwiRail in the months since.
A ministerial advisory group (MAG) established in February has been exploring new options to replace the ageing fleet, delivering a report to ministers in June.
The Ministry of Transport has been considering whether Interislander could be separated into a new state-owned enterprise (SOE) or even sold.
The Government is still yet to publicly announce a new plan to replace the ferries.
