Ferry report does not solve the big problem

The Mari­time Uni­on has soun­ded a note of cau­tion about the sea­wor­thi­ness of Inter­is­lander fer­ries.
KiwiRail has today released a sum­mary of a mari­time assess­ment of the three Inter­is­lander fer­ries car­ried out by DNV, which says the ships are in reas­on­able con­di­tion.
Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Carl Find­lay says the Uni­on appre­ci­ates the efforts being made by KiwiRail, but mem­bers on the fer­ries had real con­cerns about health and safety.
“Our mem­bers crew those fer­ries, so if some­thing does go wrong they are placed in danger.”
Mr Find­lay says the Uni­on is treat­ing the con­clu­sions of the DNV report with cau­tion.
He says keep­ing the cur­rent ves­sels run­ning until the end of the dec­ade is a stop gap meas­ure at best.
“There have been a num­ber of tech­nic­al issues with the fer­ries already, some with poten­tially very ser­i­ous out­comes, and the fact remains that there are many age­ing sys­tems and com­pon­ents in ser­vice on the fer­ries.”
Mr Find­lay says that KiwiRail has been put in an impossible pos­i­tion.
“KiwiRail doesn’t really have any choice but to sol­dier on with end of life ves­sels and push up main­ten­ance costs and main­ten­ance time for the ships.”
He says the main prob­lem remains – there is no clear indic­a­tion yet what the Gov­ern­ment has planned in place of the iRex pro­ject it dumped last year.
Mr Find­lay says the full cost of abandon­ing the iRex pro­ject is yet to be determ­ined and would pos­sibly wipe out any sav­ings on new fer­ries and ter­min­al infra­struc­ture.