Huge New Rumour on the Fastcats

[Ferryman]

I haven't been watching the news lately so I don't know if this is true or not. But after talking to an old family friend who was watching the News the other days, said that each Fastcat may be dedicated to a different route, meaning there would be 3 different routes run by Washington Marine (3 Fastcats). The Proposed routes would be: Vancouver to Victoria, Vancouver to Seattle (Cascade, you posted this idea a while ago as a suggestion). The Third proposed route will make you jump off the seat you're sitting in, so I'd advise you to hold on to something that will hold you. The Third route would be from Vancouver, to Darrel Bay. No, that's not a typo, they really mean, Vancouver to Squamish, with a Fastcat. They also want the Squamish service running by the summer, apparently. I don't see how that would work. The Garibaldi leaves the Woodfibre route in a few weeks, leaving only a few months to upgrade the terminal.

Now the question is, does anyone know if this is true? Or did I miss a post on here that was about this press release? Apparently it was on the news on Friday, so....

Aren't these all routes we've thought of, and then now apparently they might all be put into action? Or have you (Cascade) been trying to set these routes up, because this all seems coincedental to me....

[Dane]

Ha ha ha seriously? The service announcement, if it's on-time is to be in March of this year so maybe we'll have something really exciting to listen too!

Frankly, that service (NVan-SQU) would fail but I wish them the best of luck

[Quinsam]

Well, I am glad they are making failures into successful ferries, but why not have the fastcats run again???

[Scott]

Three routes, three ferries. One breaks down... then what? That seems the problem with these smaller operators, like Harbourlynx. I keep hoping they'll work out, but with only one vessel they have a hard time keeping up a reliable service. And it seems that fast ferries are even more unreliable than conventional vessels... with engine problems and more regulations.

[NMcKay]

but the fast cats will have reliability on thier side. they have four engines. running @ 90% MCR they get the boat to its 30 Knot cruising Speed. but if you run 2 Engines @ 90% you get about 18 - 20 Knots. which equals the perfect speed for a cat. and with only 2 engines, you can sawp them when they fail or when you want to perform maintinence on them. which means unlike the harbourlynx. they could run for up to 10,000 Service Hours without a single engine failure resulting in a service Disruption

[NMcKay]

remove the bow and stern doors. and either replace them with lighter ones. or Replace them with a side loading design

[Doug]

How heavy were the fast ferries? One site I seen 9,000 tonnes, which i thought was WAY off. BC Ferries originally had 1,900 tonnes and some other site had like 900 tonnes. What the hell is the real one?