BC Ferries Discussion

[mr.x]

BC Ferries has received a massive $35-million security upgrade leading up to the 2010 Games. This includes 800 cameras at terminals and on every ferry, a new security operation centre, security fencing around terminals, teams of bomb sniffing dogs, and has also purchased two remote underwater submarines to check for threats:


CTV news report
• Video Link

[WarrenC12]

Nice panicky big-brother youtube video. Who are these idiots?

[Political_R]

That is even more paranoid than south of the 49th for having remote submersibles

[SpongeG]

I guess the Canadian line is why they wanna cancel the busses

New Nanaimo-Vancouver ferry service called for

A move to cancel a bus link between Nanaimo and Vancouver International Airport has some asking if its time to reconsider a passenger ferry between the two cities.

Pacific Coach Lines has applied to B.C.'s Passenger Transportation Board to eliminate its route that links Nanaimo to Vancouver International Airport (YVR) via the Duke Point ferry terminal.

Nanaimo's mayor says a renewal of a special passenger-only ferry service now would make sense, even though the most recent attempt to launch such a service failed.

"We've got expressions of interest and we keep getting people asking for information packages about it," Mayor John Ruttan told CBC News.

"We've looked at the possibility of trying to be a catalyst to get it going and with possible investment ourselves," Ruttan said.

The HarbourLynx ferry sailed its last 70-minute run between downtown Vancouver and Nanaimo in February 2006, after three years in business. The operators of the 300-passenger vessel eventually filed for bankruptcy.
'More viable now than ever'

Ruttan said he's convinced the time is right for somebody else to give it a try, and said the city has had preliminary discussions about the idea with BC Ferries.

"I am very anxious to try to re-establish the fast passenger-only service and that has been tried unsuccessfully two or three times, but it's to my way of thinking more viable now than it's ever been," the mayor said.

"We're working very hard. We've talked to a number of different investor groups, we've also talked with some groups from China that have expressed peripheral interest, so we're forever optimistic," he said.

Some local tourism operators also like the notion.

"In Nanaimo, a lot of people wish someone would take another shot at running it, and I think there's a lot of people that wish it success," said Dave Ilyn, who owns the Buccanneer Inn.

BC Ferries currently runs two ferry routes to Nanaimo from the mainland. One sails from Vancouver's northwest suburb of Horseshoe Bay, 23 kilometres from downtown, the other from Tsawwassen, 30 kilometres south of Vancouver's downtown core.

Ruttan says he thinks that it would be at least a year before another ferry service could get up and running.
'Would love to have continued'

The Nanaimo to YVR route Pacific Coach Lines wants to cut has been operating for one year, but the buses have not been running full.
Pacific Coach Lines wants to cancel its Nanaimo to YVR bus route due to poor business. (tourismnanaimo.com)

The service would be missed by people like Bruce Barnard, owner of the Painted Turtle Guesthouse in Nanaimo.

"It's particularly difficult for travellers to get direct access straight to the airport. And they literally went from door to door," Barnard said.

"We would have loved to have continued to operate," said Darian Tooley, director of sales and marketing for Pacific Coach Lines.

"I think a lot of factors just hit us from various different points whether it was the economy, [or] job losses."

"For Nanaimo, it's a huge thing," said Ruttan. "I'm surprised it wasn't better supported."

The public has until Oct. 26 to make submissions on the application to the Passenger Transportation Board to cancel the route.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-col...cellation.html

[twoNeurons]

What about a run between Nanaimo and YVR? I wonder if it would be viable?

[lightrail]

Originally Posted by mr.x

BC Ferries has received a massive $35-million security upgrade leading up to the 2010 Games. This includes 800 cameras at terminals and on every ferry, a new security operation centre, security fencing around terminals, teams of bomb sniffing dogs, and has also purchased two remote underwater submarines to check for threats:


CTV news report
• Video Link

I am so annoyed at this complete waste of taxpayers money. It's completely pointless, paranoid and fear-mongering. Oh, well, at least I can enjoy flipping the bird to some 800 camera when I travel on the ferries.

Welcome to the 2010 Olympic Security Games

[SpongeG]

BC Ferries: We'll keep sailing until everyone gets home


Morning waits at Tsawwassen (Photo: Katharine Kitts, News1130)

TSAWWASSEN (NEWS1130) - People depending on a ferry to get to and from Vancouver Island today are pushing their turkey dinners aside and getting their spot in line. Conditions are only expected to get busier as the day progresses, but BC Ferries says they will keep sailing until everyone gets home.

While the wait on the Vancouver side isn't quite what we saw on Friday or Saturday, the line-ups started early at Swartz Bay as people head home. Sailings are full, hours before they depart out of the Victoria area, and BC Ferries has started to limit the number of walk-on passengers at Swartz Bay.

Friday's ferry fire (on the Spirit of Vancouver Island) continues to have a ripple effect today, but those we're speaking with at the Tsawwassen terminal consider themselves lucky, "We're from Alberta, and we're usually here three times a year. We never wait more than one sailing."

The 10:00a.m., 2:00p.m. and 6:00p.m. sailings from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay have all been cancelled. B.C. Ferries has added an extra sailing at 9:00 p.m. tonight. While the timing of all these problems couldn't be worse, many waiting in line say it would take a lot more to ruin Thanksgiving weekend.

http://www.news1130.com/more.jsp?con...12_113925_4640

[Vancouver_Highrise]

It's going to be hell trying to get back to UVic for me tonight.. I came home friday and waited 2hrs to walk on!

[mr.x]

So long, farewelll...

[BCPhil]

I bet if you were on the FastCat right now, it would be the ships smoothest ride in history. And it will be the furthest it's moved without breaking down. And it's probably it's most fuel efficient voyage ever. And it won't destroy the coastline on the way out. And you could probably turn on the deep fryers. And it probably won't be late.

Are there any other ones I'm forgetting? It's like my last chance!

[twoNeurons]

It'll be nice to see them put to good use.

[Zassk]

^ LOL... what was wrong with the deep fryers?

I regret never having ridden one. It's so hard to find anything about them on the web - I found a single bad video showing the wake from onboard, and not a single video of them from offboard. Even pictures generally only show them during construction, not in service. I would love to know more about them, why they were built the way they were, what the problems were, and whether they might have been fixable.

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by mr.x

BC Ferries has received a massive $35-million security upgrade leading up to the 2010 Games. This includes 800 cameras at terminals and on every ferry, a new security operation centre, security fencing around terminals, teams of bomb sniffing dogs, and has also purchased two remote underwater submarines to check for threats:


CTV news report
...

Does this mean BC Ferries has more working submarines than the Navy does?
Or do the submarines at West Edmonton Mall still hold top spot?

[BCPhil]

Originally Posted by Zassk

^ LOL... what was wrong with the deep fryers?

I regret never having ridden one. It's so hard to find anything about them on the web - I found a single bad video showing the wake from onboard, and not a single video of them from offboard. Even pictures generally only show them during construction, not in service. I would love to know more about them, why they were built the way they were, what the problems were, and whether they might have been fixable.

The boats were too choppy in the water that the ferries were forbidden to use the deep fryers by the feds because it was too likely that the boat would hit a wave and spill hot oil allover the cooks.

The idea behind them was mainly to subsidize the BC ship building industry. Someone heard that the Australians were doing something similar and had successfully started a company building fast ferries, so we figured, hey, we should too. The idea was to make some boats for BC Ferries, then show them off and sell them around the world. The problem was we built them for BC Coastal waters and not open ocean waters. The stability of the ships was a major issue, even in the straight of Georgia, and would easily sink on the open ocean. That is why they are being carried out of here.

The project became so expensive because no one knew what they were doing. The people who designed the ship never designed a catamaran before. The people building it never worked with aluminium at this scale. The contractors who did know what they were doing asked for more money because contrary to popular belief, some ship builders in BC do alright, and they wanted more money to be taken off their private contracts.

It drove up costs and made the project 3 years late. Then they were a colossal failure at doing what we built them for, so no one in the rest of the world wanted one. It's taken this long just to get rid of these 3 at pennies on the dollar of their original cost.

There are other problems too.

The engines were diesel turbines, and as such had to be run at over 90% throttle to get any kind of speed, thus they consumed diesel like it was going out of style and made them prone to overheating and breakdowns (the original design called for the use of gas turbines). They did often breakdown and many a sailings on them were cancelled.

The boats were propelled by waterjets, and the year they launched there was a lot of flotsam in the water (not unusual around here) and it would get sucked into the impellers and damage them, cancelling sailings.

The capacity of the ferries were 250 cars (vs 365 cars the ferries they were replacing could carry). The idea was that the speed of the ferry would cut half an hour off the travel time of each trip, thus over the span of a day carry around the same number of cars by making more frequent sailings.

Problems with that: the ferries created a huge wake that damaged shoreline and personal property (people's wharves and moored boats) near the terminals, so for a portion of the journey they couldn't travel at speed, thus extending their travel time to more than an hour.

The loading/unloading process for the ferry could not have been worse. It took much longer to load/unload the fastCat than a normal ferry (even at the 100% custom built berths for the fastcats).

Thus even though the actual crossing was a bit faster, the full turn around time was slightly more than a regular ferry. Meaning for all the money spent, and when they were working (and it was often they weren't because of damage to the engines) they could never, ever, move as many cars per day as the ferries they were going to replace.

To combat this, BC Ferries was going to introduce a 100% reservation system, meaning no one could just show up at the terminal and hope for a ride. At best you had to pre-book like a flight, or at worst show up and given a time to come back at and told to leave until then. They were trying to combat the line at Horseshoe Bay because it was blocking access the Sea to Sky Highway, without building a parking lot.

If quantity of cars per day wasn't important (like if no one went to the island) and the ferries only had to make a sailing or 2 a day, then they might have been great boats. But they were completely wrong, even at the design stage, for the conditions in BC on that route.

Oh, and they had virtually no outside deck space: a complete sacrilege in sun loving BC (we like to make the most of it when we get it).

[Zassk]

I found some interesting pictures on Google of the Pacificats at sea and in mothballs, but no pictures of inside the cabin or of docking/loading. Does anyone know of any pics of the cabin or dock?

[whatnext]

Won't be much of a coastal celebration over this.

B.C. Ferries paying full cost of engine fixes for three ships
Three vessels are being refitted with variable-speed motors after problems were discovered with their rotors.
Carla Wilson
about 5 hours ago

B.C. Ferries has decided against pursuing an insurance claim for engine problems on its three Coastal class ships and has opted instead to pay the estimated $8.5 million cost out of its contingency fund.

“Taking into consideration our insurance deductible and ­potential for insurance rate increases if we were to make a claim, we have now decided to fund this repair out of our contingency account, which is in place for major incidents such as this one,” Jeff Groot, B.C. Ferries spokesman, said ­Monday.

“When you consider all the costs related to design, freight (air/sea), the rotors themselves and the work to exchange them, installing six rotors is about $1.4 million each, or ­approximately $8.5 million total.”..

...The German-built ferries, which went into service in 2007 and 2008, were equipped with motors which vibrated and were noisy when in dock. The decision was made to turn off the motors and restart them when departing for the next sailing.

That doubled the number of starts for the engines and led to the need to replace the rotors, B.C. Ferries said.

The company has decided to install variable-speed motors to avoid a similar engine problem in the future on all three Coastal class vessels.

Coastal Celebration is at Esquimalt Graving Dock until April where it is being repaired and going through refit. After that Coastal Inspiration will take its turn for repair and refit.....

https://www.biv.com/news/transportat...-ships-8462369

[officedweller]

So curious how those noisy motors differ from the motors on the other big ferries?

[madog222]

Their other large boats are straight diesel propulsion. The Coastal Class are diesel-electric and don’t have variable speed drives as are used on pretty much every other diesel-electric vessel, their propulsion motors are fed with 60hz continuously when they are powered on.
They did this to save a buck and got away with it by sticking with controllable pitch propellers on conventional shafts. I believe CPPs would be required regardless of speed drive due to the doubled ended design without moving to podded thrusters.

The noise (vibration) comes from them operating at the ideal RPM for vessel service speed while at 0 knots in dock. They then decided to stop the motors at dock leading to them needing to be started every time they are about to depart which just causes other problems from the shock forces on the motor.

The article says they are installing new motors but really they are installing the variable speed drives, replacing the rotors would be because they’ve found cracks.

Their new class in this size will use podded electric thrusters with variable speed drives.

[jollyburger]

This is from 2008 so it seems like it's been an issue for a while?

Then a few weeks ago, The Tyee reported, the company performed an unusual test using as many as 18 gravel trucks to weigh down one of the vessels. The company is yet to say whether the full load helped. Nor is it clear how adding weight permanently to the vessels would affect fuel consumption should the company decide to do that.

The test points to the suspicion that the noise and vibrations are related to how high the ships sit in the water.

It’s a theory confirmed by Stefan Krueger, an engineering professor at Hamburg University of Technology, who helped design the new ferries. When the ships are at berth, the propeller may draw some air, said Krueger in an e-mail. It is “absolutely harmless for the ship or the propeller, but it can cause some noise,” he wrote.

Once loaded and underway, the propellers will be “sufficiently submerged” to prevent the problem, he said.

In an essay on the design of the new ferries, Krueger and two co-authors describe how the propulsion system was chosen.

They chose “a propeller diameter as large as reasonably possible,” arriving at five metres. They based the size on the maximum draft of the ships, the amount of the hull that would be under the water line when fully loaded. That maximum draft is 5.75 metres.

Twenty centimetres below

When the ship is unloaded, however, the blades come much closer to the surface. According to one analysis, when unloaded, the draft is just 5.2 metres, so the blades would be within 20 centimetres of the surface.

Or as an FSG employee, Markus Brinkmann, put it participating in a web forum discussion of the Tyee’s first article on the design problems with the ferries. “When the Coastals are in the dock, the propellers suck air -- yes, no doubt.” It won’t happen while they’re moving, he said.

It is also key that the propellers turn at a constant speed of 127 revolutions per minute, even when docked. Krueger said in an e-mail that he does not consider a long idling time “normal or useful, because of the related fuel consumption.” He did not, however, respond to a further e-mail asking how long would be needed to shut down the ship and start it back up again.

And as neighbours of the ferry terminals like Franklin in Nanaimo know well, the ships on the major routes spend a significant amount of time empty at the dock. They are there when they start in the morning, when they shut down at night and for 25 or 30 minutes while unloading and reloading between hour and a half crossings.

https://www1.thetyee.ca/News/2008/12/15/NoisyFerry/

From 2013 after one of the Coastal Ferries crashed into the berth:

Marine Investigation Report M11W0211

After the Coastal Class vessels entered into service, it was discovered that the bow propeller caused excessive vibration and noise as well as terminal erosion and damage to propeller blades if the motor was kept running while the vessel was berthed. In order to reduce these problems, the bow (or inshore) motor is stopped.

The Coastal Inspiration's bow propeller caused excessive vibration, noise, terminal erosion, and damage to its blades when it was left running at the dock. To avoid this, British Columbia Ferry Services (BCFS) adapted the designed berthing procedure by requiring the crew to stop the bow propeller motor. To stop the motor without triggering the automatic feathering of the propeller, the crew were instructed to "freeze" the pitch at zero by setting the pitch to zero with the handles, and then switching from normal to emergency mode to bypass the automation. Freezing the pitch does not involve use of the emergency push buttons associated with emergency mode.

https://bst-tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-r.../m11w0211.html

The rotors (rotating part of electric motor) have a service life of 30,000 starts.

https://www.bcferries.com/web_image/...3956593694.pdf

[officedweller]

Thanks for the info!