How much worse could it have been? 

I don’t want to speak too soon. A refloating mission is underway. But from what we know at this stage, KiwiRail, the Interislander, and New Zealand might have just escaped a much, much more serious disaster.  

The Aratere ferry departed Picton last night and from what we understand about the timeline, almost immediately lost steering. Within fifteen minutes it had run aground. 

There are 47 people onboard. Most of them are crew. All of them are in lifejackets. Most importantly, all of them are safe. And for now, at least the ferry is watertight. We wait for high tide and the impending rescue operation. 

It’s bad. But again, my reaction is strangely one of tempered relief, in that we may have just dodged a far greater disaster. Imagine if the ferry had lost steering further out in the Sounds and run aground late at night. Imagine if it hadn’t been perfectly still and calm. Imagine if it was full of passengers —school holidays— kids. Imagine if it hadn’t stayed watertight. Imagine if it got into trouble at a vital point in Cook Straight entering Wellington Harbour. There are surely moments on the journey where even if alarm was raised, emergency vessels and tugboats might not have the time to scramble and save the stricken ship. 

We could be waking this morning to news of a maritime disaster in one of the most beautiful parts of New Zealand that made the Rena look like nothing. And most importantly, of course, people could’ve died.  

The state and the future of the ferries has been a political football. The previous government signed a fixed-price contract to build two new ferries. But after the Inter-island Resilience Project exploded in its projected costs, the new government declined KiwiRail’s request for extra funding. In parliament, as recently as a few days ago, Transport Minister Simeon Brown was highly critical of KiwiRail's maintenance of the current fleet.  

But last night’s event will obviously bring all of this into sharp focus. Is this an event that will justify new vessels and the new port infrastructure, after all?  

Let’s hope the ferry and her passengers can be safely refloated. But clearly the status quo is unsustainable. And just because we may have avoided the absolute worst this occasion, doesn’t mean the next time won’t be different.