Interislander

Interislander is a ferry through the Cook Strait between the ports of Wellington and Picton. It connects the New Zealand North Island with the South Island.

It operate three ships. Are transported annually about one million passengers and 230,000 vehicles in 5700 crossings (as of July 2008). A trip takes about 3 hours for a distance of 92 km and does not run often stormy, and in particular the section on the open sea Cook Strait.

History

The connection was established as a service of the New Zealand Railways Department, was first called Searail and was renamed in 1989 in Interislander.

In July 2008 the New Zealand government bought the KiwiRail Holdings and thus the Interislander - operation, which is a subset of KiwiRail.

Ships

The fleet currently consists of the following ships:

  • Arahura 20 knots (railway - 60 cars / Auto - 12 trucks and 125 cars / passenger ferry, built in 1983 in Denmark)
  • Aratere 19.5 nodes (railway - 28 cars / Auto - 30 trucks or 230 cars / passenger ferry - 670 passengers, built in Spain in 1998 )
  • Kaitiki 20.5 knots (car - 1780 meters in length for trucks 600 cars on three decks / passenger ferry - passengers in 1650, built in 1995 in Holland as Isle of Innisfree; chartered by Interislander 2005 under the name Challenger, renamed in 2007 in Kaitaki )
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