Interislander
Interislander is a ferry service across the Cook Strait between the ports of Wellington and Picton . It connects the New Zealand North Island with the South Island .
Three ships operate. Approx. One million passengers and 230,000 vehicles are carried annually on 5700 crossings (as of July 2008). A crossing takes about 3 hours for a distance of 92 km and is not infrequently stormy, especially on the section in the open sea of the Cook Strait.
history
The connection was established in 1962 as a service of New Zealand Railways under the name Cook Strait Inter-Island Rail and Road Service. The first ship of the ferry company was the Aramoana , which was completed in the year it was founded . In 1966 she added a slightly modified sister ship called Aranui . In the following years, the shipping company expanded its fleet with two more ships, before the Arahura, which was New Zealand's largest ferry to date, was put into service in 1983 .
In 1984 the Cook Strait Inter-Island Rail and Road Service was named SeaRail. In 1989 the shipping company was finally given its current name, InterIslander. In 1991 the shipping company became an independent company and finally sold to a private owner in 1993. Since 1995 the company has belonged to Tranz Rail.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, InterIslander chartered several used ships from other shipping companies, including four catamarans . In 1998 the Aratere was the first to be rebuilt in fifteen years, which at the same time exceeded the Arahura in length (and, after a renovation in 2011, in tonnage) and thus became New Zealand's largest ferry. In 2007 an even bigger ship followed with the chartered Kaitaki .
In July 2008, the government acquired New Zealand the KiwiRail Holdings and the Interislander-operation which is a subset of KiwiRail. InterIslander thus returned to state ownership.
In July 2015, after 32 years , the Arahura was decommissioned as InterIslander's longest-serving ship and sold to India for scrapping in the same year . As a replacement, the former Stena Alegra started working for InterIslander under the name Kaiarahi .
Ships
Current fleet:
| year | Surname | tonnage | shipyard | Remarks |
| 1998 | Aratere | 17,816 GRT | Hijos de J. Barreras, Gijón | First new building for InterIslander in fifteen years |
| 2007 (1995) | Kaitaki | 22,365 GRT | Van der Giessen-De Noord , Alblasserdam | largest ship InterIslanders; Commissioned as Isle of Innisfree in 1995 , chartered from Stena Line in 2007 , purchased in 2017 |
| 2015 (1998) | Kaiarahi | 22,152 GRT | Astilleros Espanoles SA, Seville | Commissioned as Dawn Merchant in 1998 , chartered by Stena Line since 2015 |
Former fleet:
| year | Surname | tonnage | shipyard | Remarks |
| 1962 | Aramoana | 3,968 GRT | William Denny and Brothers , Dumbarton | First ship in the fleet; Sold in 1984, scrapped in Alang in 1994 |
| 1966 | Aranui | 3,821 GRT | Vickers-Armstrongs , Newcastle upon Tyne | Sold in 1984, scrapped in Chittagong in 1994 |
| 1972 | Arahanga | 8,848 GRT | Upper Clyde Shipbuilders , Clydebank | Scrapped in Alang in 2001 |
| 1974 | Aratika | 3,879 GRT | Dubigeon Normandy, Nantes | Sold in 1999, scrapped in Alang in 2008 |
| 1983 | Arahura | 13,621 GRT | Aalborg Værft , Aalborg | Formerly New Zealand's largest ferry; Scrapped in Alang in 2015 |
| 1994 (1992) | Condor 10 | 3,241 GRT | International Catamarans, Hobart | Catamaran; Commissioned in 1992, chartered by Enterprise Trading from 1994 to 1998 |
| 1999 (1997) | Condor Vitesse | 5,007 GRT | Incat , Hobart | Catamaran; 1997 as Incat 044 put into service, chartered 1999-2000 by Condor Ferries, today as Champion Jet 1 in drive |
| 2000 | The Lynx | 6,581 GRT | Incat, Hobart | Catamaran; as Incat Tasmania put into service, chartered 2003-2000 by Incat Chartering, today as Normandy Express in motion |
| 2003 (1978) | Purbeck | 6,507 GRT | Soc. Nouvelle des At. & Ch. Du Havre, Le Havre | Found in 1978 in service from 2003 to 2005 by Brittany Ferries chartered today as Maria Rosario momentum |
| 2003 (1997) | Incat 046 | 5,617 GRT | Incat, Hobart | Catamaran; Put into service in 1997 from 2003 to 2005 by the TT-Line chartered today as T & T Express in motion |
Web links
- www.interislander.co.nz (Official Site)
- the fleet of InterIslander on faktaomfartyg.se (Swedish)
- the fleet of Inter Islander on ferry-site.dk (English)