A Nelson couple are hoping it will be third time lucky as they try to get their car onto one of the problematic Cook Strait ferries after being unable to get it home from the North Island since early January.
So far it has cost Louise Richardson and Stu Lowe about $2,000 in airfares after their ferry bookings were twice cancelled and they were forced to book last-minute flights.
The couple were heading home from Northland in early January when their first ferry sailing on the Bluebridge ferry was cancelled.
The next available booking was not for weeks, and as they needed to get back to work they left the car, complete with bikes and paddleboards, with relatives and flew home.
When they flew back to the collect the car they could only get a 2am booking and were halfway down the North Island when they got a text to say the sailing was cancelled.
With no bookings available in the short term, they returned to Auckland to park the car with relatives again and flew home.
Now they are about to fly north again to try for a third time to get the car home and Louise says, if the ferry is cancelled again, they will have to consider selling the car because they are paying so much money to try and get it home.
She says the experience has been frustrating and expensive, but they have been lucky.
They had somewhere to store the car safely and they have another car they can use, plus a generous neighbour who lends them a car sometimes.
“It’s an absolute shock when it happens. You just can’t believe it.
“There’s a lot of decisions to be made quickly and it has cost us a fortune in flights because when you are last minute, flights are expensive.”
Both the Interislander and Bluebridge ferries have been plagued by ongoing problems through the summer peak season and the Interislander has repeatedly cancelled bookings on its vessels.
In January the Kaitaki lost power in high winds near the rocky Wellington coast and has had gearbox issues ever since.
It has now cancelled all sailings on the vessel until it is repaired.
The Kaitaki is part of an ageing fleet of ferries owned by KiwiRail which now has a contract with South Korea’s Hyundai Mipo Dockyard to build two interisland ferries to replace the elderly vessels.
However, those replacements are not expected to arrive in the country until 2025 and 2026.
Interislander executive general manager Walter Rushbrook says the fleet are nearing the end of their useful lives and it is difficult to source appropriate second-hand freight and passenger ferries at short notice while waiting for the new ferries to be built.
If the Kaitaki is not ready to sail during the Easter holiday period, he says the goal is to ensure as many booked passengers as possible will be able to travel.
The other ships, Aratere, Kaiarahi and the freight-only Valentine are still sailing.
While the Interislander has problems, its rival Bluebridge has also wallowed in the water.
It sent one of its fleet to Sydney in February for scheduled work and a new vessel that arrived in January, the Connemara, had engine problems early on.
Sailing cancellations have left people stranded both sides of the Cook Strait and Louise says there will be different challenges for everyone, such as people with medical conditions who often take just enough medication for a trip, or young families.
She says being caught up in ferry cancellations will be very stressful for many people.
Stu agrees and says the cancellations have been a nuisance for them but could be financially challenging for many passengers, and stressful as they work out what to do with vehicles and get home.
He also has sympathy for the ferry companies that have faced Covid-19, staffing and weather issues.
But their business models are based on second-hand fleets and he says those models are flawed.
Having a reliable Cook Strait service is critical for the country and Stu says the new Interislander ferries cannot come soon enough, though he worries the docking facilities will not be ready in time for their arrival.
