Question: Queen of Alberni lifting

[markkarj]

Hi folks:

For the veterans out there... when the Queen of Alberni was lifted in the 1980s, was it a matter of simply adding in the extra car deck and some more lounge space? Did they have to add sponsons or change the hull? Modify the engines?

[markkarj]

Another question: I've noticed that the Queen of Alberni used to have a number of portholes on the lower car deck that seem to have been covered up. Same for some of the other c-class ships.

Is there any particular reason why? Too many people unhappy with a salt-water "rinse" on their vehicles during windy days?

[Curtis]

The lifting of the Queen of Alberni was probably so she could carry more vehicles since most of the major vessels in the fleet had it done since the ferry traffic was rising. Since I don't know the other specifications I wouldn't know if the engines and stuff like that were changed.

As for the windows, I'd say the most likely reason would be fire-proofing, cause if they were lowering the life boats and something in the engine room exploded, would you want to be hit by the debris? Probaby not.

[Ferryman]

The Queen of Alberni was built with the same hull as her other sisters. So basically all they did while they were lifting her, was enclosing the car deck, and lifting the passenger deck to accomdate the upper car deck. Her passenger accomadations have only expanded slightly since she was originally built, which only increased the pax capacity by about 50-100 people or so. This was because she used to have outer decks, on the passenger deck level, on all four corners of the ship, similar to what you see on the mainland end (#2 end) of the Oak Bay and Surrey.


Portholes on the car deck were removed because of lowering of the life rafts, so they wouldn't be affected by any fire on the car deck. The windows on the passenger deck are supposed to be fireproofed as well, above the same area that was covered up on the car deck. This might not make sense....so I'll try to draw a visual picture.......Look at the picture in the link provided below, and imagine fire roaring out of all of the windows, and then look at where the davits for launching the life rafts are.

photosbychris2006.fotopic.net/p28882316.html

[Retrovision]

Gary and Patricia Bannerman wrote quite the authoritative book for its time in 1985, arguably the most-referenced book about our ferry system published since, called "The Ships of British Columbia - An Illustrated History of the British Columbia Ferry Corporation". From it, on page 119, there's a very enlightening and partly candid (as much of the book is) passage regarding the lifting of the Queen of Alberni:

THE SHIP CUTTERS' RETURN
Ships must view the engineering department of BC Ferries with the same degree of affection that a frog has for a biology lab. The cutters were at it again in 1984, and this time Queen of Alberni was under the knife. The $9 million expansion was a pet project of the Hodgson era. The ship was sliced in half horizontally, and an entire new car deck was inserted, increasing automobile capacity from 145 to 300.

A unique member of the jumbo family, Alberni's design was to service tractor trailers and overheight vehicles. Her hull and engineering plant were the same as her C-Class sisters, but the car deck remained a vast open cavern, and the passenger accomodation space was substantially less. But she lacked versatility. Thus, a plan unfolded to retain all her overheight capability, but ot add a car deck. The design was an in-house job under engineering boss Jim Watson, naval architect Tom Blyth and construction superintendant Peter Mehta. Burrard Yarrows did the work.

It had been hoped that the renovated Queen of Alberni would serve the Sunshine Coast, but local residents protested her restricted passenger space. Also, midway through 1985, a renewed evonomy brought unpredicted demant for additional tractor-trailer capacity between Nanaimo and the mainland, reducing the need for her extra car deck.

I personally find the last paragraph of this passage the most telling of how we've ended up having to endure such a black sheep of a major vessel ever since. It sticks in my mind that if they had only put-off their plans for lifting by a year, they would have found it unnecessary to the point of laughing about the magnitude of the implications for decades down the road if they had gone through with cutting with so little foresight, as we are now having to and have ever-since had to deal with.
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Check out Gary Bannerman's profile on BC Bookworld's website:
www.abcbookworld.com/?state=view_author&author_id=349