Ferry repairs cause passengers’ woes
Passengers due to travel on Interislander’s berthed Kaitaki ferry have been left stranded, with no alternative but to completely rebook or scrap their travel plans.
Viv Reid was due to leave Wellington yesterday to tour the South Island in a campervan with her partner.
But 24 hours before her departure, Interislander told her that the 8.30pm sailing on Kaitaki wasn’t going ahead.
‘‘The communication has been atrocious,’’ Reid said.
‘‘I rang yesterday morning and was assured we’d be booked to sail tonight but it was moved to 8pm. Then 7.30pm last night it was cancelled. No suggestion for alternatives. Just cancelled,’’ Reid said yesterday.
Reid said social media was awash with travellers in much worse situations than hers, some of whom have had to abandon their cars and fly home after being stranded on the wrong island. ‘‘We were all packed and
ready to go but we were lucky.
‘‘Even though our campervan was booked and we’d taken our annual leave, our employers were really flexible and allowed us to withdraw our leave.’’
Kaitaki experienced a complete power failure on Saturday when its cooling system sprung a leak. The ferry has been undergoing repairs in Wellington since then but is set to return to the Cook Strait from today, sailing as a freight-only service.
Interislander executive general manager Walter Rushbrook said Kaitaki would return to sea at 8.45am today.
‘‘The plan is to return Kaitaki into service in a staged way. The ship will return initially as a freight-only service. After further performance and assurance checks, we will resume taking passengers.’’