Strong start for Pine Harbour weekend ferry trial
• March 25, 2022
The Sealink service from Pine Harbour. Photo: Georgia Whitehead
A trial to extend the Pine Harbour ferry service to weekend sailings exceeded all expectations during its launch last weekend.
After years of just weekday ferry services, Auckland Transport launched a six-weekend trial from Pine Harbour to Auckland's city centre.
The trial, which started on March 19 and will go until April 25, has been a long time coming, says Franklin Local Board member Malcolm Bell.
“Board member Angela Fulljames and I have been campaigning for weekend sailings for eight years," Bell told TWN.
The service proved popular with locals, with the first service on Saturday morning at capacity, before numbers tailed off towards the end of the day.
“The Saturday sailings were an outstanding success. I wasn’t expecting such a great turnout from our residents. I would have thought, if we got half the numbers that we would be doing well,” said Bell.
A full ferry in the Pine Harbour weekend service trial. Photo: supplied
Despite windy weather and cancellations on Sunday, a handful of residents took advantage of the service.
“The Beachlands, Maraetai, and Whitford residents were absolutely delighted and very happy to be boarding the service,” said Bell.
He said he was hopeful the success of the launch this past weekend would encourage Auckland Transport to initiate a full-time sailing timetable by spring, despite extreme impacts on the Auckland Council budget due to covid.
The Franklin Local Board now wants to focus on encouraging more people to travel from the city centre to the coast.
“Our real hope is that at some point the flow of people to the CBD and Pine Harbour begin to balance each other and we see real benefits for our cafes and restaurants along the coast."
Senior skipper at Pine Harbour Kevin Turner said the support from the community over the weekend had been great but he was concerned about residents' continual use of the service on the weekends.
“It is really up to the local community to be using it. I hope it's not like a new restaurant that’s opened up and people get excited about it and [then] it dwindles," said Turner.
However, he was confident reliable weekend services would encourage regular ferry users.
The next weekend ferry scheduled to depart Pine Harbour is this Saturday at 9.50am.
