“The two of us will go together.”
Chris Woodruff, Aratere’s senior master, made his last voyage when the ferry crossed Cook Strait for the final time today after 26 years in service.
Woodruff is retiring along with the ship and taking voluntary redundancy, alongside many other staff who are also losing their jobs.
“It is sad, it will be the end of an era,” Woodruff said.
He said the retirement of Aratere - the strait’s last rail ferry once nicknamed El Limon (The Lemon) for its accident-prone reputation - is significant, and he remains hopeful new rail ships can be delivered soon.
The Herald was invited on the Aratere’s last Cook Strait voyage, an 11am departure from Picton.
After a short delay, while the captain waited for the Bluebridge ferry to berth, the Aratere was off without a hitch.
Rodrigo Latoza, the Aratere’s customer service manager, said the team pulled out all the stops to make it a memorable voyage, including free cupcakes, balloons, and some staff dressing up in costume.
“It’s been my home for the past five years,” he said.
“It’s a new beginning, some things have to end.”
Ship enthusiasts Lachlan Deans and Scott Wallace bought tickets to join today’s historic sailing, with Wallace travelling from Palmerston North to take part.
He said the pair wanted to take part in the sailing they consider to be “part of history”.
The ageing ferry is being retired to allow for the demolition of the Picton Wharf. In turn, this will make way for infrastructure work in preparation for the brand new, larger, rail-enabled ferries arriving in 2029.
It leaves only the Kaitaki and Kaiārahi, which returns from drydock in Singapore later this month with a fresh lick of paint, to cover all needs until the Government replaces them with two new rail ferries in 2029 that are yet to be ordered.
Minister for Rail Winston Peters announced the new plan to replace Interislander’s ailing fleet in March.
It replaces Labour’s iRex project that would have delivered two new mega ferries and upgraded port infrastructure in Wellington and Picton
Aratere’s future is uncertain with KiwiRail still considering options for its sale.
The Aratere has had her fair share of problems, even from the start.
Built in Spain, her December 1998 delivery voyage took longer than anticipated. Motor fuses blew, new fuses were installed.
They blew also - there were no spare fuses on board.
The next day, enroute to Panama, couplings between the port motors and gearboxes failed, and the Aratere was drifting in the South Atlantic Ocean. She spent three days in Panama undergoing repairs.
She finally made it to Wellington on January 19, 1999 where inspectors realised her Safety of Life at Sea certificates were expired.
Work was undertaken and new certificates were issued.
A few days later Aratere was ready for her maiden Cook Strait voyage, but it wasn’t smooth sailing, her port side Vulcan coupling failed once again.
She returned to Wellington and was taken out of service to be investigated.
New couplings were installed and railing modifications were also done, she returned to service without issue, for only a couple of weeks.
On February 24, Aratere’s power failed in the strait.
“There had been considerable positive publicity preceding the delivery and arrival of Aratere, but both local and national media attention soon focused on the delays, the mechanical problems, the withdrawal from service, the modifications and repairs and the power failure,” a Transport Accident Investigation Commission report from the time reads.
The drawn-out mechanical debacle saw the ferry given the unfortunate nickname “El Limon”.
In December 2000, the Aratere blew a piston and its engine malfunctioned, causing weeks of delays.
On a stormy night, on Saturday July 5, 2003, the Aratere left its Wellington terminal to make room for another ferry to berth.
After struggles manoeuvring, the ship’s bow struck the San Domenico fishing vessel moored at the wharf.
The San Domenico’s crew managed to scramble ashore from the damaged fishing vessel. Diesel leaked into the harbour and a crew member was taken to hospital.
A TAIC investigation found the “relatively inexperienced” Aratere master was sleep deprived and fatigued at the time.
The Aratere nearly ran aground, narrowly missing a rock in the Tory Channel, on September 29, 2004 carrying 292 people.
The ship was operating on “automatic track-keeping mode”.
However, despite its chief officer informing the master it was substantially off-track, it was not until Aratere had deviated 100m that they intervened by turning it hard to port (left).
It was still travelling about 20 knots (38km/h).
Just two days later, Aratere cut across the bow of another ship in Wellington, which led to the master of the ferry being censured.
Investigations into the incidents uncovered several serious failings in Cook Strait ferry practices.
Steering trouble on a February 9, 2005 crossing led to the Maritime Safety Authority declaring a “crisis of confidence” with the problem-plagued interisland ferry.
It was detained in Picton after the then-owners, Australian company Toll Shipping, ignored the MSA’s advice to voluntarily withdraw the vessel from service and sailed it to Picton.
At the time the Aratere had been investigated 43 times since arriving in Wellington six years earlier - a record for a Cook Strait ferry.
The sailing was described as “reckless” by authorities and legal action was discussed.
An electrical fault on the rudder was believed to be the latest cause of Aratere’s problems and she was barred from sailing with passengers for just over a month.
After returning from Singapore for maintenance, the Aratere was infested by rats, it was reported at the time.
An exterminator had to be hired to deal with the problem.
Another TAIC investigation was launched after the Aratere lost a propeller during a Cook Strait crossing on November 5, 2013.
A replacement propeller had to be shipped from Europe and the Aratere was only allowed to make one freight-only sailing on a single engine.
KiwiRail said at the time 60,000 fewer passengers would be able to cross the strait because of the months-long disruptions.
The Aratere experienced a “power blackout” in February 2023, caused by disintegrating tape binding wiring.
The Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) found the Kaitaki incident was caused when a piece of safety-critical equipment ruptured and failed. The rubber expansion joint was 13 years older than it should have been.
An Interislander investigation found the power outage was caused by the failure of an actuator - a part in the diesel generator.
Most recently, the Aratere hit headlines again after making a premature waypoint turn out of Picton, running aground about 10pm on June 21, 2024.
Forty-seven people were aboard - eight commercial drivers and 39 crew, passengers were told to wear lifejackets.
A few weeks later, while investigations were under way into the cause of the grounding, NZ First posed an extraordinary question on social media.
“Is it true that the Aratere ran aground when someone put the autopilot on, went for a coffee, and then couldn’t turn the autopilot off in time when that someone came back...?” the party posted.
A TAIC report into the grounding found the bridge crew did not know how to turn off the autopilot function on a new steering control system.
“However, while the cause of the grounding is yet to be formally determined, Maritime NZ’s preliminary inquiries have found that the incident was not due to a crew member leaving the bridge to make a coffee,” the report said.
Maritime NZ lifted its detention notice on the ferry allowing it to return to service on July 10, 2024.
Not two months after its grounding, the Aratere suffered more damage when berthing in Wellington Harbour in strong winds on August 8, 2024.
She hit a link span, the dock ramp which allowed vehicles to access the vessel. The vessel’s hull was penetrated, creating a small hole high on the ship. There were 106 passengers and 40 crew on board but no one was injured.
The ferry was fixed overnight.
Ethan Manera is a New Zealand Herald journalist based in Wellington. He joined NZME in 2023 as a broadcast journalist with Newstalk ZB and is interested in local issues, politics, and property in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz.