"If a vessel had to ground, this is the luckiest place."
These are the words of Marlborough Mayor Nadine Taylor, speaking on the Interislander ferry that ran aground just outside of Picton last night.
Taylor's statements came in relation to plans to get the vessel, its eight passengers and 39 crew, back to business.
The ferry Aratere ran aground shortly after leaving Picton around 9.45pm due to a steering failure, executive general manager Interislander Duncan Roy confirmed to 1News last night.
There were plans to refloat the vessel at high tide this morning, however, the refloating of Aratere was delayed until this evening’s high tide at around 9pm to allow more time to prepare the ship and make use of a higher tide, Roy said.
So far, the eight passengers and twelve of the crew onboard the Aratere have disembarked.
Two tugs are planned to be used to refloat the vessel — Maungatea and Monowai.
"But these are small, in-harbour tugs," Taylor said.
"These are tugs that are used to move vessels in and of berths. They are not made for open waters."
"Luckily," Taylor said, "[the Aratere] is in the inner Harbour, it's on a sandy recreational beach, and luck was at play — but I certainly wouldn't rely on luck in the future."
"Had this happened out in Cook Strait, in open waters, these wouldn't have been the tugs that we needed — we would have needed an open sea rescue tug."
KiwiRail chief executive Peter Reidy said at a standup conference today that KiwiRail are taking the situation "extremely seriously."
"We take all these instance extremely seriously, and we are lucky that it's just in the shallow bit of water here. It's nestled into the sand. It's not jagged rocks, it's sand and mud."
Maritime Union spokesperson Victor Billot told 1News that the incident was "startling, and potentially dangerous."
"The main concern was that there was danger to life... obviously at this point it looks like everyone is safe and there had been no injuries."
Billot said had the grounding happened at a different location, results may have been very different.
"If it had happened at another place, at another time and in different conditions, it potentially [could have been] catastrophic."
"Where Aratere has come aground, it is quite close to Picton, it's quite sheltered... the conditions are fairly calm... that was, in a round-about way, fortunate."
Billot said if the conditions were different, "it could have been a lot worse."
"The potential for loss of life would have been there."
SHARE ME