Maritime Union backs ‘Aratere’ ferry investigation

The Mar­itime Union says it sup­ports the Mar­itime Safe­ty Author­i­ty (MSA) deci­sion not to allow the inter­is­land fer­ry ‘Aratere’ to sail until it was sat­is­fied the fer­ry was safe.

The ‘Aratere’ suf­fered steer­ing prob­lems yes­ter­day evening in Welling­ton har­bour.

Mar­itime Union Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Fleet­wood, who works aboard the ‘Aratere’, says the Union has con­fi­dence that the MSA are tak­ing the sit­u­a­tion seri­ous­ly.

“Our main con­cern is the safe­ty of crew and pas­sen­gers,” said Mr Fleet­wood.

The ‘Aratere’ is crewed by Mar­itime Union mem­bers.

The Union has already spo­ken out about equip­ment fail­ures on the fer­ry and request­ed an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion after a steer­ing fail­ure near the entrance to Tory Chan­nel in Sep­tem­ber 2004.