Case Studies

On 5 November 2013, an issue with one of the ferries carrying passengers between New Zealand’s North and South Islands hit the news headlines: a 6.5-tonne propeller had fallen off the Aratere and sunk into the waters near the Tory Channel.

A recently installed submarine fibre optic cable that connects Auckland’s Maraetai Beach to Waiheke Island has delivered two important benefits for the island’s 10,000 residents.

On 5 October 2011, the Seaworks team was the first on the scene to respond to what would later be labelled New Zealand’s largest and costliest shipwreck and worst maritime environmental disaster.

If you ever take the ferry across Cook Strait, spare a moment for the submarine cables beneath your feet. You may not know it, but a Seaworks expert or one of our remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) could be working not too far away.

When an ageing fibre-optic cable located on Cook Strait’s seabed needed to be removed and replaced, the Seaworks team contributed specialist expertise, extensive experience and purpose-specific equipment to get the job done.

When the New Zealand Government took on the massive job of decommissioning an offshore oil field, it appointed Seaworks to take a preliminary deep dive – gathering key data and samples that would be used when assessing the scope and costs of the work and appointing contractors to undertake it.

In 2018 Seaworks’ experience in transporting personnel and cargo for the Department of Conservation (DoC) stepped up a significant – and challenging – notch.

In 2021 Seaworks played a critical role in the creation of what was to be one of the world’s largest submarine telecommunications cable networks: Southern Cross NEXT.

With their extensive experience and expertise at sea, the Seaworks crew relishes opportunities to tackle new challenges and solve new problems. So when Windfall Films – a UK-based television production company – needed a support vessel and crew for recording a TV series, we were delighted to help.