From the Daily Cargo News yesterday:
AN INTENSIFIED maintenance program for Interisland Line’s trouble-plagued Cook Strait ferries will see at all three out of service for protracted periods over coming months.
The only rail-capable vessel, Aratere, will lay-by in Wellington for work from 11 to 23 May. Kaiarahi will undergo a ‘wet dock’ at the Waitohi West berth in Picton from 4 June until 6 July. And Kaitaki will have a much longer absence, due to the need for a comprehensive drydocking in Singapore, which involves a 14-dayvoyage up and 14 days back. This means Kaitaki will be out of service from 29 July to 6 October.
All three aging vessels have suffered myriad problems over the last 12 months or more but had to be kept in service pending delivery of two 53,300 GT rail/ro-ro/pax replacements in 20205 and 2026. However, the incoming NZ National Party government last December axed the iReX program after expected costs blew out to close to NZ$3 billion, mostly attributable to landside infrastructure.
https://www.thedcn.com.au/sticky/deep-maintenance-to-take-cook-strait-ferries-out/
From Stuff in January 2023:
Stricken Cook Strait ferry the Kaitaki drifted more than a nautical mile towards the rugged Wellington south coast in winds gusting over 100kph, it’s been revealed.
The harbour ships that raced to her aid also likely lacked the grunt to pull her and 800 passengers to safety.
Wellington Harbourmaster Grant Nalder on Sunday praised the professionalism of the crew and captain, who battled challenging conditions to drop two anchors and halt the powerless ship’s drift 0.9 nautical miles from shore and 0.6 nautical miles (1.1km) from hitting the sea floor.
Meanwhile in Scotland, CalMac running more than 500 sailings at 100% reliability since Sunday after a shocking dip to only 99.6% on the Saturday. Kind of makes you wonder if the media reports of delays and maintenance outages ruining island life are just a load of politically motivated excrement of the male bovine.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
One of the main cities in New Zealand is Dunedin, after Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland and so the ferry problem can be traced to the fact that Scots are not geneticlly programmed to manage things properly.
That John Swinney MUST GO!
Alasdair Macdonald
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34 ferries. 6 on order. 70,000 islanders. Subsidised ferries and flights. One ferry for 2,000 islanders. Quite a lot of ferries. Better than some bus services. 10 a day Arran. 5,000 pop. Every hour.
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