00:02It was a remarkably smooth journey overnight. We are just pulling into Devonport now. The
00:07gantry, the ramps are lowering and as you can see around me there are a number of people
00:13watching excitedly as this first sailing has arrived here in Devonport. But as you alluded
00:18to there, there was a nine-year journey to get to this point in replacing the spirits.
00:24It was plagued by cost overruns, delays and mismanagement and resulted in the resignation
00:31of a cabinet minister. So the government and TT line will certainly be happy that we had
00:36pretty smooth waters overnight and that the sailing appears to have gone off without a
00:40hitch to get us here to Devonport this morning. Yeah, it looks like a gorgeous morning there
00:45to welcome it back in. What's the mood been like on board?
00:50It certainly is a gorgeous morning here in Devonport as it is always in North West Tasmania.
00:55But the mood has been pretty, yeah, pretty joyous on board. We were chatting to passengers last
01:00night. There were a lot of people who had specifically booked on to the first sailing because they're,
01:06you know, ferry enthusiasts. They were just so excited to come to Tasmania on what is a historic
01:11voyage because this is the first time that the government, the TT line, had bespoke vessels
01:18made for the spirits of Tasmania, for the Bass Strait crossings. So this is something that
01:25many passengers on board were quite excited about, but some of them didn't even know that
01:29they had booked on to such a historic voyage and were just happy to be coming to visit Tasmania.
01:35So, yeah, pretty jubilant mood on board this morning.
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