Excitor

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The Excitor outbound to the 'Hole in the Rock'.

The Excitor is a jetboat and major tourist attraction in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand.^[1] It is used on a high-speed trip through the scenic bay out to Cape Brett, where the boat travels through the 'Hole in the Rock', a natural sea-tunnel (wave-heights permitting).^[2] The boat is operated by Tourism Holdings Ltd.^[3]

1 Jetboat
2 Accidents
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Jetboat

The timber-fiberglass jetboat, in its second incarnation as Exitor II, was built by Johnson Yachts International Ltd, and uses 2 x 'Seafury' jetboat drives built in Silverdale, Auckland, powered by 2 x 800 hp turbo intercooled CAT engines. It reaches speeds of up to 46 knots (approximately 85 km/h), and carries 46-54 tourists. It is 18 m long, 4.2 m wide and has a 1.2 m draft. Around the end of 2002, the boat replaced the smaller Excitor I, which was in use by the company for six years on around 900 trips.^[2]^[1]

[edit] Accidents

The trip is not fully without danger. Passengers sitting in the open boat have to wear life jackets, and waves swamping the boat have been reported, though it is designed to quickly drain the water through its stern.

However, the Exitor I was involved in a serious incident in 1998, when a mechanical failure in the gearbox linkage caused the boat to become unsteerable while entering Cathedral Cave. With the starboard engine still running ahead, the bow of the vessel collided with the cave wall. Twenty-nine people aboard had to abandon the boat and were forced to "swim for their lives" to the mouth of the cave, while the boat was battered against the cave roof by 3 m high wave swells. After 20 minutes, the operator was able to reverse the boat out of the cave, radio for help, and pick up the passengers. One person sustained light injuries, and one young child suffered hypothermia.^[4]

Passengers involved in the incident accused the operator of subsequently downplaying the duration and the risks during the incident, such as the danger of being dashed against rocks.^[5] They were also critical of the (at that time unreleased) official incident report by the Maritime Safety Authority, which was said to have failed to address contributing factors such as the late arrival (5 pm) of the boat at the cave, the height of the swells outside the cave mouth, as well as alleged fatigue of the skipper.^[4]