Thread: Cook Strait Ferry

Originally Posted by Eat Meater

If every single person in the country stumped up a one-off $320 that would cover the blowout.
No way Jose. That's $1600 for my household of potential wasted taxes. That's not ok.

Identify your target beyond all doubt because you never miss (right?) and I'll be missed.

More like $600 from each and every person in NZ from the latest figure of $3 billion. $2400 for my household, and I'd still have to pay a fare to actually use it???? I don't think so!!!!!

Originally Posted by Bol Tackshin

More like $600 from each and every person in NZ from the latest figure of $3 billion. $2400 for my household, and I'd still have to pay a fare to actually use it???? I don't think so!!!!!

Don't forget to add that to each family's existing tab, stretching off to our grandkids, for all the other money borrowed.

I have a feeling in my water that the mods will soon deal to this thread....

bloody silly thing is that the ferries carry things like coal to wellington where its put in plastic bags and sent back to the south island!

Originally Posted by gonetropo

bloody silly thing is that the ferries carry things like coal to wellington where its put in plastic bags and sent back to the south island!

agreed. but still less silly than shutting down coal mines and importing it to be more "green"

Originally Posted by Bol Tackshin

More like $600 from each and every person in NZ from the latest figure of $3 billion. $2400 for my household, and I'd still have to pay a fare to actually use it???? I don't think so!!!!!

I was quoting the 1.4B extra the government just rejected, but yes, 600 per for the whole thing.

Identify your target beyond all doubt because you never miss (right?) and I'll be missed.

I've been reading a fair bit about this today and it's been very interesting indeed. It's also interesting reading some of the comments.

If you go through a blow-by-blow account of the project, with a focus on the extraordinary variations being reported against preceding forecasts and budget requests, it reminds me of what happened with Solid Energy and Don Elder's visions and how he got those agreed to by Treasury (visions which turned to coal dust in no time under John Key's Govt).

Anyway without wanting to get into all that, it's been even MORE interesting to read about all the different ferries available. That's really got my interest and stopped me from doing what I was supposed to be doing on the PC - some amazing engineering out there. I used to love taking ferries, and have done all sorts from the absolutely ginormous, to small ones on Rift Valley lakes that were assembled mostly by hand in Africa after being transported cross-country in parts.

There's no shortage of options for our seas.

All good fun and a real eye opener.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

rail needed why??? to bypass using shipping of containers is my only real guess/reason.... other than that,whats advantage???
what goes via rail can be shipped and reloaded...

It's the most efficient way to shift shipping containers from the major ports (Auckland and Tauranga) to where they are needed elsewhere in the country. Certain shipping outfits are not calling into the south Island at all on some services now I'm told, so the ability to efficiently send cans south and north is required as we don't have a coastal shipping outfit that is fully operating.

You should as China for a couple of ferries,they love to help developing countries with their infrastructure projects!

do they build unicorn fart powered ones, just to keep it clean and green

Originally Posted by DemocKot

lots of good ferries in the Baltic sea area that are also designed for really rough weather.....

slightly off topic sorry but
This is an Estonian ferry in the ice with ice skaters along side....

https://x.com/katavarblane/status/1734905672087589106?s=20

Originally Posted by DemocKot

lots of good ferries in the Baltic sea area that are also designed for really rough weather.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Estonia

The straights between Norway and Denmark gets a bit choppy,but the cats seem to handle that well.

The North Sea is a bit rough and the ferries that ply the coast from Stavanger up to inside the Arctic circle always seem to run ok.

Maybe New Zealand has the wrong kind of water between the two Islands?

We would not be having this discussion if the maintenance procedures for the equipment and the condition monitoring and reliability engineering on the equipment needing to be replaced were all up to scratch.

As a person with a proven reliability track record in the large marine, fixed plant, mobil equipment and diesel power generation industries I am qualified to make that statement.

But sadly maintenance penny pinching and a lack of ownership of machine reliability, is coming to hit us in the pocket also bringing with it an increased risk of accidents and disasters.

Just today I was looking at some of our haul truck data... over 80,000 meter hours on many trucks.. translated at a slow 50kph = 4 million hard kilometers up hill down dale rain hail mud and heat.... so yes safe reliable on going operation of the ferries is acheivable if best maintenance practices were in place.

But we would rather buy new toys for a billion than porperly maintain what we have for a few million more than we currently spend.

And that is my vent for the day, time for a beer.... btw, this is what I built today...

I would like to use it, but currently its just too expensive for me to justify driving south for a hunting trip.

Last time i went south for those fancy goats i flew down and rented a car.

Originally Posted by Shamus_

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Estonia

Relevance? That ship had sailed a lot of nautical miles successfully. It sank, but remember, a lot of ships have sunk in NZ waters too.