A gas bottle was sucked from the seabed into the thrusters of one of the new Spirit of Tasmania ferries during testing – but it didn’t trigger an emergency shutdown, according to the state’s transport minister.
Minister Eric Abetz revealed details of the April incident on Thursday, after Labor leader Dean Winter questioned whether any emergency shutdowns had occurred during testing of the vessels.
“On April 15, Spirit IV engaged all four side thrusters as part of a test while alongside at Leith,” Abetz said.
“An hour into the test, a vibration was felt in one of the bow thrusters, which was then shut down. Divers were deployed and a gas bottle subsequently was found in the unit.”
The minister said the bottle, which didn’t belong to ferry operator TT-Line, had been “lifted from the seabed” by the thruster’s suction.
But the incident only came to light after Winter pressed the minister about shutdowns, having been told yesterday that no emergency shutdowns had occurred on either of the new ferries.
“Yesterday I asked about shutdowns, whether there have been any emergency shutdowns to either of the new Spirits and the answer was no,” Winter said.
“Then he has just admitted that there was in fact a shutdown, in fact in quite detail, exactly as I had already been advised.”
Winter said Labor had “better information about what is going on with our Spirits than the government did” and questioned why the incident wasn’t made public earlier.
Abetz responded by drawing a distinction between an emergency shutdown and an operational issue.
“He asks me a question as to whether there was an emergency shutdown. The answer to that is an unequivocal no,” Abetz said.
“He then tries to reinvent his question today and as I read out in the answer. It was an operational matter. It was not escalated to be an emergency shutdown.”
“As you might imagine, I am not advised of every little operational matter that might occur with TT-Line. Emergency matters of course should be escalated. This was not an emergency matter.”
Abetz confirmed the thruster shutdown was “not in any way associated with LNG issues recently encountered”.
More on this story: ‘Technical issue’ delays Spirit of Tasmania IV’s departure from Scotland
