Langdale Questions

[YZFNick]

Re: when it's busy enough to need two ships heading to Langdale, and the 2nd berth is used in Langdale. Will that boat have cars on the upper level and the internal ramps used for loading and unloading? Or does that take too long to negate the advantages of having some extra cars on the trip?

Since there is no payment necessary to head back to Horseshoe Bay? Is there a booth at all, for someone to do lane advisory, check reservations etc?

[Political Incorrectness]

They have three booths at Langdale to assign lanes and they have flaggers during peak periods to ask if you have a reservation or not. They close off the left and right turns into the terminal and make you go up the hill and down again to get into the terminal. The second berth is not used during peak period regularly and just used when necessary.

[Low Light Mike]

Most of the time when there is a 2nd vessel on the run, it will tie-up at the single-ramped berth, but then move to the main berth for use......so that both car decks can be loaded.

On rare occasions, the 2nd vessel might just load the main car-deck from the secondary berth, as was done last week and captured on film by a member here.....but that's in rare circumstances when it's behind schedule perhaps.

So, to answer your question, the old Berth #2 is mainly used to tie up the Esquimalt when it's not in use.

[Extreamme]

What about last Thanksgiving when the Queen of Coquitlam was operating and it has a ramp on board the ship connecting the top and the bottom car decks

[Low Light Mike]

Extreamme:

I've seen BC Ferries post service-notices before, saying that Berth#1 will be closed for maintenance, and so Berth#2 (single deck) would be used instead.

In those notices, they say that vehicles will access the upper car deck via the articulating-ramp......which will cause delays. The 4 full-size C-Class ships have these ramps, access from the side gallery decks.

[Deleted]

flugelhorn said:

Extreamme:

I've seen BC Ferries post service-notices before, saying that Berth#1 will be closed for maintenance, and so Berth#2 (single deck) would be used instead.

In those notices, they say that vehicles will access the upper car deck via the articulating-ramp......which will cause delays. The 4 full-size C-Class ships have these ramps, access from the side gallery decks.

When they have two ships sailing from Langdale during busy long weekends and throughout the summer the extra ship is always tied up in Berth 2. The Queen of Surrey's turnover is about two hours, so they schedule the other ship to run in between and they will pass each other in Howe Sound. Which ever ship is the extra will move over to Berth 1 to load and take advantage of the upper and lower car deck ramps while the Surrey is in Horseshe Bay.

The ships are only forced to use their inner articulating ramps when there is maintanance or some kind of break down with Berth 1. Hopefully, this does not occur often. It's a nightmare when it does.

[Curtis]

Loading a C Class in Langdale's berth 2 goes something like this.
The Main Car Deck Loads as Usual the same goes with the Gallery Deck.
And the Upper Car Deck is Loaded from the Gallery Deck only problem being that the cars are backwards.