By Madleine CarrWhite, Massey University Journalism Student
The Kaiārahi ferry.
Photo: Interislander
An Interislander staff member has gone overseas to collect crucial components to fix the stricken ferry Kaiārahi.
KiwiRail spokesperson Taru Sawhney said the action was taken to ensure the part and a spare got here as quickly as possible.
They will arrive on Friday afternoon, and there will be sea trials over the weekend.
The Kaiārahi has been out of service since Tuesday night because of a technical fault.
An Interislander spokesperson said operating with one vessel was challenging, particularly during a busy period, but the company has managed it before.
During this time, Interislander was prioritising urgent freight that could not travel across the Cook Strait any other way.
Sawhney said around 1300 private vehicles were affected by the Kaiārahi outage and those customers were being offered a full refund.
A small number of people have taken up an offer by Interislander to move private vehicle bookings to a later date with a 50 percent discount off the advertised price.
KiwiRail expects to have the Kaiārahi sailing by next week.
Meanwhile, a technical fault meant that Bluebridge’s Connemara ferry was also cancelled on Thursday and Friday. Its Picton-Wellington service was scheduled to return to service early on Saturday morning.
“All customers affected by this cancellation have been automatically transferred to an alternative sailing and will receive an updated e-ticket with revised sailing and check-in time,” Bluebridge said on its website.
“If your re-scheduled sailing time doesn’t suit your needs, standby lists will be operating from each direction for affected passengers across subsequent sailings.”
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