When the Interislander’s Aratere ferry ran aground near Picton this weekend, it was the latest chapter in a long history of the vital connection between New Zealand’s two islands. 

On its website, Interislander describes itself as part of State Highway One and the Main Trunk Line of the railway. This isn’t an official designation, but it may as well be: the ferry services are useful for passengers, especially those needing to move their cars between the islands, but completely essential for freight. 

The five ferries currently operating across Te Moana-o-Raukawa, the Cook Strait, carry more than $15bn of cargo each year, according to the sector. Lots of food, livestock and commercial goods are carried on the ferries – stuff that even people who haven’t taken a ferry for years will regularly see on their supermarket shelves. It has a long history: before Europeans arrived in New Zealand, Māori travelled across the water to collect kaimoana, trade and wage war. 

But while car-enabled ferries have been running for more than half a century, the route has had consistent issues – especially in the last few years, as ageing boats with frequent breakdowns have increasingly stood in rickety contrast to the gleaming promise of two new, purpose-built hybrid ferries with increased capacity (more on that below). With the latest issue, Aratere running aground near Picton last week, drawing further attention to the Cook Strait ferries, here’s a brief timeline of Cook Strait crossings past and present. 

1962: The GMV Aramoana Ferry sails from Wellington to Picton. While a passenger service between Wellington and Picton dates back to 1875, the Aramoana is the first ferry that cars, trucks and railway carriages can load directly onto, making it a much more efficient journey. GMV stands for “government motor vessel”, and was run by the Railways Department; it made transporting goods by rail and truck much more competitive with using ships for the whole journey. Four more Wellington-Picton ferries are added in the years that follow. (The Wahine, which sunk at the entrance to Wellington harbour in 1968, with the loss of more than 50 lives, was a Lyttelton-Wellington ferry.)

1992: Strait Shipping, now known as Bluebridge, launches a small freight service across the Cook Strait.

1993: The government privatises the ferries, along with the rest of the railway department, to a consortium called Tranz Rail, including bankers Fay, Richwhite and Co and an American railway company. It spends the next decade bouncing around different collaborations with international railway operators, investors and freight companies. 

1994: The privatised Interislander ferries axe 150 crew jobs after prolonged strike action. Also, perpetually plagued fast ferries called “vomit comets” start offering passage across the strait, operating for the next decade. 

1999: The Aratere, built in Spain, starts sailing. It has lots of issues which cause it to be called “El Lemon” by crew members. 

2002: Bluebridge launches as a passenger service with the Santa Regina ship, then adds other big ferries over the next decade.

2004: Tranz Rail is bought out by the New Zealand arm of Australian freight company Toll NZ. The ships get new branding, now called “Interislander”, not “Interisland Line”. 

2008: The Labour government buys the railway and ferry system back from Toll NZ for $665m and renames it as KiwiRail. KiwiRail continue to operate Interislander, while Bluebridge continues as a private enterprise.  

2011: Interislander, now in public ownership again, gives its ship the Aratere a $52m overhaul, with more passenger space and power generation capacity. It has lots of issues over the next few years, including dropping a propeller in Marlborough Sounds and engine breakdowns. 

2014: Aratere goes back to Singapore for another round of repairs. 

2018: State-owned enterprise KiwiRail, Interislander’s owner, compiles a business case ahead of the 2019 budget, saying that its preferred option is to replace its three Cook Strait ferries with two bigger ships with rail capacity. The government gives KiwiRail $35m to progress the design and procurement of the new ferries. 

2019: The projected cost of the ferries project increases to $1.389bn, more than the initial $775m. The government gives Kiwirail a further $400m for the project in the 2020 budget. 

2021: Cost increases mean KiwiRail asks for another $500m for the ferry upgrade; costs for the port facilities to host the ships are the most pricey component, quadrupling to $1bn. The government agrees to delay the funding, and KiwiRail says this could mean progress is further delayed and contracts with the shipbuilders could have to be renegotiated. The project is now called iReX, for Inter-island Resilience Connection (marginally catchier than IiRC, increasing the chances of the acronym being remembered correctly). 

A detailed business case is released for the ferries, including cool things like hybrid technology so the engines aren’t completely reliant on diesel. In June, KiwiRail signs a contract with a Korean shipyard to build the two new ferries, while work continues on upgrading the ferry terminals in Wellington and Picton to accommodate the new boats. 

February 2023:  A fault in the engine cooling system of Kaitaki, the biggest ferry of the Interislander fleet, brings it to a halt mid-journey. With about 880 passengers on board, the boat starts being pushed by heavy winds towards Wellington’s south coast, dangerously close to rocks. The risk is high enough that Wellington hospital is warned to prepare for mass casualties, as is standard for severe emergencies. The engines get going again and the boat makes it back to Wellington harbour. 

KiwiRail also tells the government that the total cost of the iReX projects is now $2.6bn. 

April 2023: Interislander’s Kaitiaki is out of service for part of the month due to issues with its gearbox that require parts shipped from Germany. Bluebridge also cancels multiple journeys of the Strait Feronia on April 3 due to engineering faults. There’s very limited space for cars on ferry services for several weeks. 

November 2023: Bluebridge’s Connemara ferry hits a wharf while leaving Wellington, denting the hull and creating a hole. 

December 2023: The government cancels the iReX ferry project due to cost increases, mostly around the cost to upgrade the ports for the new ferries. 

February 2024: KiwiRail begins discussions to cancel its ferry contract.  

June 2024: Interislander’s Aratere ferry runs aground near Picton on the night of Friday June 21. It’s refloated the next day, but grounded by Maritime New Zealand, leaving Interislander with just one operating ferry; Bluebridge is carrying Interislander’s extra capacity where it can. 

“The frustrating thing is there was a solution there and they could have had those new ferries there in a couple of years,” Maritime Union of New Zealand’s Victor Billot told 1News.