The operator of the Spirit of Tasmania, TT-Line, is "urgently" looking for a lease for the first of its new vessels while it is being stored in Scotland. While some options include a three-month lease in New Zealand or starting a Sydney-to-Geelong service, TT-Line has chosen to keep it in Europe, where it believes the strongest market is. Spirit of Tasmania IV will sit in Leith, Edinburgh, for at least a month while lease options are considered — but early discussions have highlighted challenges.
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TVTranscript
00:00It's called the Spirit of Tasmania, but for now, it's calling Scotland home, with its
00:08operator turning down interest from across the ditch.
00:11New Zealand were interested for a charter, a short-term charter, whilst they took a vessel
00:19to Singapore for dry docking.
00:22It's considering some left-field options about how to use it before it starts its Bass Strait
00:27run.
00:28One of the things that seriously has been considered is whether we can take a passenger
00:34voyage from Geelong and take it.
00:37Is there somewhere in Sydney we can take it?
00:39Is there a market for it?
00:41TT Line is yet to appoint a broker, as it works to lease the ship to a Northern Hemisphere
00:46operator, while the opposition pushes to abandon talks.
00:50We spend almost a billion dollars on these two new ships, and they should be new when
00:53they arrive.
00:54Let's bring them home, let's fit them out in Tasmania, let's keep them safe and make
00:58sure they're ready to go as soon as their berth's ready.
01:01An initial deal to store the ships in Scotland will cost $47,000 a week, but that doesn't
01:07include some extra costs.
01:09We'll need provisions, we will need fuel, because the vessel will be operating on the
01:14auxiliary engines the whole time.
01:15It's what we call a warm lay-up, we don't shut the vessel down.
01:19The Spirit saga has been a blow to the tourism industry, led to multiple resignations and
01:23caused Tasmania to make international headlines for all the wrong reasons.
01:27But after months of blame-shifting, today a key player accepted responsibility for the
01:32failure.
01:34We had overconfidence, I think, within our ranks.
01:37It's an embarrassment to us, and it's upsetting for me, because the people of Tasmania ought
01:43to expect better.
01:45An apology at home, as the state's tourist attraction settles in on the other side of
01:50the globe.