Police hope the sentence given to a man for trying to smuggle explosives across the Cook Strait will serve as a warning to others.
Allan Herbert Tod, 67, was sentenced in the High Court in Wellington on Friday to community work on several charges.
In 2010, Tod boarded an Interislander ferry with a vehicle and trailer concealing 660kg of explosives. He was going to the South Island to do avalanche control work.
The ferry booking was made in another name, but police, acting on a tip-off, stopped him.
Senior Constable Grant MacDonald says hopefully the case will deter others from trying to smuggle dangerous goods onto a ship.
Regulations state that dangerous goods can be carried only on the 6.05am sailing on Sunday. Documents detailing the goods must be carried.
Police say the same explosive detonated on a ship in Canada in 1917, killing 2000 people.
