KAIARAHI
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Search for passenger who went over board suspended
A search was underway for a person who went overboard from the 'Kaiārahi ' on the Cook Strait on March 30, 2026, at 11 p.m.. The police said was alerted to the incident on March 31 at about 2.20 a.m. The incident was only remarked when a car remained unmanned during the disembarkation process of the fully booked ferry. This triggered a search on the ferry and attempts to contact the man. Only when the CCTV footage was reviewed, it became clear that he fell from the ship hours earlier. The Police Maritime Unit and the New Zealand Rescue Coordination Centre were formally engaged shortly after 4 a.m. Multiple police and Coastguard assets were deployed. A rescue helicopter was flying search patterns a few kilometres out from Red Rocks. Ten volunteers from Coastguard Wellington were searching the area aboard the rescue vessels 'Reremoana' and 'Spirit of Wellington'. The Rescue Coordination Centre NZ was leading the SAR operation. During the day, the weather deteriorated, and the search had to be suspended without finding the missing person on April 1. Ships in the vicinity were, however, requested to keep a sharp lookout.
Ferry to be repaired at the weekend
KiwiRail hoped to have the 'Kaiārahi' back in service by the end of the weekend of March 14/15. The ferry has been out of service since an intermittent technical fault recurred on the night of March 10 when the vessel was berthed in Picton. Engineers had identified the cause and a replacement component from overseas was due to arrive on the afternoon of March 13. An Interislander staff member has gone overseas to collect crucial components to fix the stricken ferryo. The action was taken to ensure the part and a spare part arrived as quickly as possible. Trials were planned for March 14/15. Eight additional sailings of the 'Kaitaki' would be put on, on March 15 and March 16, when the vessel was due for a scheduled layby. Foot passengers on the cancelled sailings of the 'Kaiārahi' had been accommodated on 'Kaitaki' sailings, mostly on the same day. Around 1300 private vehicles were affected by the outage, and those customers were being offered a full refund, the opportunity to rebook at no additional cost and compensation for reasonable costs incurred as a direct result of the outage. Interislander was prioritising urgent freight that could not travel across the Cook Strait any other way.
Ferry sidelined due to technical fault
Supply chain disruptions were expected after a mechanical fault of the 'Kaiārahi ' has reduced KiwiRail’s Interislander fleet to a single ferry. Sailings of the 'Kaiārahi' have been cancelled after a technical fault emerged on the morning of March 7, 2026, and again on March 10 in Picton. The fault was first detected while the 'Kaiārahi' was berthing in Wellington. The vessel safely docked but several sailings were cancelled while engineers carried out investigations, repairs and sea trials during a scheduled maintenance layby. The ferry returned to service on March 10, before the fault resurfaced later that evening, after the vessel had completed berthing. The recurrence allowed engineers to identify the root cause, and a replacement part was now being sourced from overseas. To help maintain capacity across Cook Strait, additional sailings of the 'Kaitaki' were scheduled for MArch 8 and March 9, dates that were previously set aside for maintenance. Interislander aimed to return the 'Kaiārahi' to service early next week, subject to successful testing and regulatory approval.
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