by Keith Ingram (2009)
A massive growth in demand for ferry services from Pine Harbour, Beachlands and Maraetai over the last six years led to the launching of the impressive Clipper III earlier this year.
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By Lindsay Wright (July 2009)
Sitting beside the wharf at Q-West’s Wanganui boatyard, Meridian Energy’s newly launched crew boat, Mararoa, seems like a hell of a lot of boat to be doing a ferry run back and forthacross a lake.
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Meridian’s new $2.7 million catamaran ferry slipped quietly into Dunedin last night for a refuelling stop as part of its maiden voyage.
The ferry, The Mararoa, docked at Port Chalmers and was due to sail for Bluff this morning, before being trucked to Lake Manapouri, Meridian spokesman Gerald Raymond said.
The 19m ferry was launched in Wanganui last week, and would be used to transport staff to and from Meridian’s Manapouri power station at West Arm on Lake Manapouri, Mr Raymond said.
The faster, more fuel-efficient ferry would replace two ageing vessels – Endeavour and Resolution – which were built in the 1960s, he said.
As well as using less fuel, the twin-hulled vessel’s wake would be smaller, reducing the impact on the environment, he said.
17.02.2009
by John Maslin
Wanganui boat builder Q-West is bucking the gloomy financial trends with news it has picked up another major contract.
And company director Myles Fothergill said with other work on its books, it may be taking on more staff later in the year to handle the work.
The latest boost for the Castlecliff boatyard comes with a decision by the police to place an order for a launch to replace Wellington’s 20-year-old Lady Elizabeth III.
It is the same design as the $3 million 18.5-metre aluminium, high-speed catamaran Q-West built for Auckland’s maritime police.
“We’ll be strengthening the front end of the Lady Elizabeth IV because of the seas it will be working in.
The Cook Strait is one of the toughest stretches of water in the world,” Mr Fothergill told the Chronicle.
The announcement from Police Minister Judith Collins is another part of a 10-year contract the Wanganui company had nailed down with the police.
Mr Fothergill said this new boat and other prospects could see Q-West taking on more staff later in the year.
He said trading conditions were tight in his industry, as with most others, “but this contract is good for us, given the economy is pretty wobbly at the moment”.
He said it wasn’t so much his company doing things a lot differently but just being smarter about how it did its business.
He said securing the contract to supply NZ Police for the next 10 years at least showed how hard his company had worked to establish good relationships with its customers.
“But the work we’ve got was secured before the world realised it was in a credit crisis.
“And the types of customers we’ve got are pressing ahead with their needs.
“Our business have long lead-in times between securing a contract and work actually starting,” he said.
Mr Fothergill said the inquiries his company was fielding were not all offshore.
“Although the dollar is very favourable for US and the Middle East buyers, people are pretty tight with their money at the moment.”
But he said the prospects for other boat builders were not as promising.
“We’re starting to see boatyards up north hitting the wall and there will be a lot of that happening this year for sure.
“There are several yards in Auckland and Northland that are finishing work off and have got no more orders ahead.”
Mr Fothergill said Q-West had work on track for the rest of the year and the Wellington Police launch pushed that schedule through to the middle of 2010.
“That’s 50 percent of what we need so we just need to find the rest of that work. And we’ve got some really good inquiries coming in.”
His yard is working on the replacement of one of the Kaikoura Whale Watch boats.
That was a boat Q-West built in 1999.
“The second boat was launched in 2000, and they’re planning to have that second boat replaced toward the end of this year.
“If we get that, for delivery in October next year, then that would be close to all the work we need meantime,” he said.
The yard was finishing off a crew boat for Meridian Energy that will work on Lake Manapouri and that was due for delivery in April this year.
“We’ve recently begun construction of a 14m research vessel for the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) due for delivery at the end of this year,” Mr Fothergill said.
After patrolling Wellington Harbour for nearly 20 years, the police launch Lady Elizabeth III is to be replaced with a more powerful $3.5 million boat.
The new aluminium Lady Elizabeth IV will have the same generic design as the Auckland police launch Deodar III, with modifications for Wellington’s heavier weather conditions.
Police Minister Judith Collins said Lady Elizabeth III, known as “Lizzy”, began patrolling the harbour in 1989 and had become an institution, but was now beyond its “mechanical life expectancy”.
Lady Elizabeth III has 13,700 hours on the clock with a mechanical life of 12,500 hours. The replacement will be the ninth police boat to patrol Wellington waters.
“Many people owe their lives to her and her brave crew … but the time has come to replace her with a more modern vessel that will enable the police to roam further, respond to emergencies faster and be safer for those working on board,” Ms Collins said.
The 18.5-metre-long catamaran will be larger than Lady Liz III with a travelling speed of 56kmh (30 knots) at 62 per cent power.
Q West Boatbuilders, of Wanganui, is expected to start work on the boat in July, but it will probably be 18 months before it is in the water.
Maritime unit head Senior Sergeant John Bryant said the new boat was long overdue.
“Lizzy III has served us well, but she’s 20 years’ old and showing some pretty serious fatigue.”
Maritime police have recently been using a smaller boat to save Lizzy for larger search and rescue jobs, usually in Cook Strait. On average, Lizzy has taken part in more than 600 incidents and 400 patrols each year.
Memorable rescues include that of Wellington diver Rob Hewitt, who was found off Mana Island after 70 hours in the water in 2006.
In 2000, Lizzy battled winds topping 95kmh to rescue the 11-metre yacht Satchmo, and was also involved in searches after the 1999 disappearance of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope in the Marlborough Sounds.
Its role had also changed, with today’s boat used in multi-agency missions, such as Fisheries Ministry patrols, Mr Bryant said. “She wasn’t designed for that. She was designed … to be a search and rescue vessel.”
ELIZABETHS’ REIGN:
* The Lady Elizabeth III was launched in 1989 as a replacement for the Lady Elizabeth II, which sank at the entrance to Wellington Harbour in 1986. Two of the four crew were killed.
* Previous maritime policing boats have included Antipodes, a 10.3-metre pleasure launch used briefly in 1941; Tuna, a Harbour Board boat badly damaged in 1971; and Kaikoura, hired by police in August 1971.
* The original Lady Elizabeth was a 12-metre cabin cruiser built for Blenheim man Fred Musgrove and named after his grandmother. The Defence Ministry received the boat under the Wartime Shipping Requisitioning Emergency Regulations and put it into Wellington police service on September 6, 1941. It was withdrawn in 1971 as it was no longer seaworthy.
* The Lady Elizabeth III is 17.3 metres long and capable of 22 knots (40kmh). It was designed by an Upper Hutt naval architect, built in Nelson and began service on December 23, 1989.
* It cost $2.3 million, of which the public donated $280,000.