The Port of Tauranga's new $2 million pilot boat is alongside at the north end of the Maunganui wharf following the delivery voyage from Whanganui over the weekend.

The Arataki is in Tauranga.

They had good weather for most of the trip, says port operations manager Nigel Drake. They experienced calm seas from Whanganui to Wellington and from Wellington to Napier.

'Round East Cape we had head seas,” says Nigel and, 'from White Island to Tauranga we had northerly winds with a two metre chop”.

Arataki departed Napier at 5.15am on Sunday, arriving Mount Maunganui at 7pm.

'We varied the engine revs every hour by 100 revs, which is the recommended way you deal with new engines,” says Nigel.

At 1500 revs the speed was 19 knots and 24 knots at 1900 revs.

'She's a big powerful vessel.”

Arataki will be in service when the paper work is completed by Maritime NZ concerning registration as a Tauranga ship.

The Arataki has been a year in the build at Q-West in Whanganui. She seats seven in leather upholstered hydraulically-damped truck seats, and carries state-of-the-art technology, much of it accessed through touch screens.

Arataki is powered by twin 750hp Scania V8 diesel engines driving fixed-pitch propellors. Her service speed is 25 knots, compared with the 18 knot speed of the port's existing pilot boat Tauranga II.

Arataki is designed by Auckland design house Bakewell-White. She's 16.5 metres long, and weighs about 20 tonnes.

Arataki is a planned replacement for the existing pilot boat Tauranga II, which is one of the first purpose-built high speed pilot boats in the country. It is now 25 years old, and by coincidence was built at the same Castlecliff yard.

'Arataki means to guide and to lead, but there's a local connection as well,” says Nigel.

The naming ceremony is on December 14.