{"id":13951,"date":"2025-06-12T05:22:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T17:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=13951"},"modified":"2025-06-12T05:22:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T17:22:20","slug":"electrical-issue-sees-aratere-ferry-passengers-stuck-on-board-for-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=13951","title":{"rendered":"Electrical issue sees Aratere ferry passengers stuck on board for hours"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Passengers on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/524541\/interislander-ferry-aratere-damaged-berthing-into-wellington-harbour\">beleaguered Aratere ferry<\/a>\u00a0were stuck on board for hours overnight after it broke down on its way to Wellington.<\/p>\n<p>KiwiRail said the ferry left Picton at about 8.50pm, but then &#8220;experienced an\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/528514\/timeline-a-recent-history-of-cook-strait-ferry-woes\">unexpected issue<\/a>\u00a0with its propulsion drive&#8221; while sailing.<\/p>\n<p>That issue was fixed at about 1am and the vessel resumed its trip to Wellington, with a new expected arrival time of about 5am on Thursday. An online tracker showed it at the port shortly before 4.45am.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Unfortunately, we will have to cancel the 6.15am Thursday morning sailing from Wellington to Picton and the 11.00am Picton to Wellington return sailing while we undertake further testing,&#8221; a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Interislander&#8217;s customer service teams are currently amending bookings due to these cancellations. All affected customers will be offered an alternative sailing. If the alternative sailing is not suitable, passengers are welcome to reschedule for no additional cost.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We apologise for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/559571\/aratere-retirement-commuters-face-major-disruptions-over-next-4-years\">the inconvenience<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It was initially expected the vessel would need to return to its Picton berth for repair, and a tug was standing by to provide assistance.<\/p>\n<p>Seven commercial vehicle drivers and four foot passengers were on board the ferry while it was anchored for hours, waiting for a specialist electrician to arrive.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are looking after the customers on board and once the vessel returns to port, we will transfer them to alternative sailings,&#8221; the spokesperson earlier said.<\/p>\n<p>In April,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/558803\/interislander-ferry-sailings-cancelled-after-electrical-fault\">another electrical fault on the Aratere<\/a>, with a hydraulic pump, saw a Wellington to Picton crossing and its return journey cancelled.<\/p>\n<p>rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Passengers on the\u00a0beleaguered Aratere ferry\u00a0were stuck on board for hours overnight after it broke down on its way to Wellington. KiwiRail said the ferry left Picton at about 8.50pm, but then &#8220;experienced an\u00a0unexpected issue\u00a0with its propulsion drive&#8221; while sailing. That issue was fixed at about 1am and the vessel resumed its trip to Wellington, with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13951"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13953,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13951\/revisions\/13953"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}