Ferry Holdings has secured the preferred supplier for two new ferries to replace New Zealand’s Interislander fleet, Rail Minister Winston Peters has today announced.
The Minister confirmed Ferry Holdings had conducted wide market engagement, led a closed tender process with six shipyards, and has now signed a letter of intent with the preferred ship builder to start the final stage of technical negotiations.
“The shipbuilder and Ferry Holdings have agreed a fixed price, completion in 2029, and full delivery of our ship specification for 200-metre-long ferries with road and rail decks, room for 1,500 passengers each, and an extraordinary 2.4 kilometres on each ferry of lanes for trucks, cars and 40 rail wagons.”
“Nobody can accuse us of a lack of pace when Ferry Holdings is delivering a multi-year procurement process within nine months,” Mr Peters said.
The Minister said the letter of intent is a key milestone in any procurement process.
“It means the two parties are on the same page for the deal and can now iron out the technical points before signing later this year,” he said.
“The shipyard will be named once the contracts are signed, and we thank the other five shipyards for their competitive engagement throughout this process.
“This deal builds on more than six decades of Interislander serving New Zealand on the Cook Strait and readies the Strait for another 30 years of service.
“In a few short months we will show the taxpayer exactly how we have saved them billions by returning to the no-nonsense ferry replacement solution that was supposed to happen in 2020 but was so wantonly disregarded between 2021 and 2023.
“In Tasmania, two ferries arrived with nowhere to berth and had we followed the previous Government’s mismanaged course we would have spent $4 billion to have exactly the same outcome – but thankfully commonsense is at the helm again,” Mr Peters says.
The Minister said the new ferries will be designed to safely transport passengers, cars, trucks and rail wagons across the Cook Strait. The new vessels will work to minimise carbon emissions and will have an expected life of 30 years.
The vessels will be a diesel-electric hybrid with batteries and azimuth thrusters’ propulsion (360-degree directional rotating) to support the vessels’ manoeuvrability in the Tory Channel, whilst docking, and operating at 20 knots.
Both will be designed to minimise carbon emissions and environment impact.
