Ferry Geek Challenge!

[Kam]

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A ferry geek challenge!

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You think you know the all the ferry routes and schedules better then the next guy?

[glow=red,2,300]Prove it.[/glow]

The Challenge: Build a travel itinerary that will take the most ferries possible in a 24 hour period.

The guidelines:

• Contest opens today (Sept 19th) and closes Midnight, Sept 26th
  
  
• Travel can occur any time within 1 year from the close of this contest.
  
  
• Any sailings used must be presently published, available to the general public and verifiable.
  
  
• The start and end point of the trip must be the same
  
  
• Departure points are at the geeks discretion
  
  
• Travel begins at the departure time of the first ferry
  
  
• Travel ends at the arrival time of the last ferry
  
  
• Travel is restricted to one trip per direction per route. (You can’t get on the Albion ferry, sit all day and count the round trips…)
  
  
• Travel modes are restricted to ground and sea
  
  
• Use realistic ground travel times (no, you cant drive from HSB to TSW in 45 minutes..)
  
  
• Sea travel must use a publicly available regularly scheduled service.
  

The prize?

The tile of [shadow=blue,left,300]“God or Goddess of the ferry geeks!”[/shadow]

(And bragging rights of course!)

May the best geek win!

[Kahloke]

It's interesting that you bring this up. Such a trip was actually tried by a couple here in Washington and published in WSF's latest Inland Crossings newsletter. the article was called a "24 Hour Ferry-A-Thon" and the couple managed to travel on every WSF route within a 24 hour period. I'm not going to link you directly to the article since that is hot-linking, but I will tell you where to find it:

- Navigate to the Washington State Ferries homepage
- Click on the Customer & Community Relations tab
- scroll down to Sound Crossings, and select Sound Crossings-Sept/Oct 2007 Volume 4. This will allow you to open the PDF which is the newsletter this article is in. It's worth the read to see how they did it and in which order.

I suspect your challenge to travel on as many BC Ferries routes will be a little harder given the vast distances the network covers, and that there are far more routes than what WSF has.

[Mike C]

THREE WORDS: BRING IT ON.

[Retrovision]

orcasnative said:

It's interesting that you bring this up. Such a trip was actually tried by a couple here in Washington and published in WSF's latest Inland Crossings newsletter. the article was called a "24 Hour Ferry-A-Thon" and the couple managed to travel on every WSF route within a 24 hour period. I'm not going to link you directly to the article since that is hot-linking

I'm not extremely clear on the issue myself, but I'm fairly sure that this would not be considered hotlinking in the form that proboards forbids. I'm fairly certain that when they say hotlinking they mean posting an image on one of their forums that comes directly from a website, stealing that bandwidth every time someone views that page on the forum.

Often we post links to news stories, etc., here, and such linking has seemingly always been acceptable. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this one, Global Mods.

[Low Light Mike]

tsawwassenterminal said:

orcasnative said:

I'm not going to link you directly to the article since that is hot-linking

I'm not extremely clear on the issue myself, but I'm fairly sure that this would not be considered hotlinking in the form that proboards forbids. I'm fairly certain that when they say hotlinking they mean posting an image on one of their forums that comes directly from a website, stealing that bandwidth every time someone views that page on the forum.

Often we post links to news stories, etc., here, and such linking has seemingly always been acceptable. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this one, Global Mods.

Retro is correct.

Orcasnative: You would have been ok posting website links.

Rule: You can't post an IMG photo directly from a non-related website (ie. something other than your photoaccount or tinypic etc) to this forum.

Now, back to the Geeks........who shall inherit the Earth.

[Ferryman]

Just so Kam doesn't think anyone isn't pondering his idea, I'm doing a "rough" itinerary in my mind, of which would include the most routes in a day. Some of us have actually already attempted this in person, and most of the day is gone with all of the travel time on the road, and actually waiting for the Ferries themselves.

[Kahloke]

OK - I'm going to throw my hat into the ring here. I may (actually, probably) will get trounced by all of you BC residents who I'm sure know your ferry system better than I do, but here's my shot (with a vehicle):

Thu, 4-Oct-07
1. Tsawwassen to Duke Point:
lv Tsawwassen: 22:45
ar Duke Point: 00:45 (Fri, 5-Oct-07)

Overnight at hotel or some other accommodation in Nanaimo to get a few hours of sleep (very few!). Leave Nanaimo around 04:00 and drive to Little River, arriving around 05:30.

2. Comox (Little River) - Powell River (Westview):
lv Comox: 06:30
ar Powell River: 07:50

Drive from Powell River to Saltery bay, around 40 minutes.

3. Saltery Bay - Earls Cove:
lv SB: 09:25
ar EC: 10:15

Drive the Sunshine Coast Highway to Langdale, approx. 90 minutes.

4. Langdale - Horseshoe Bay:
lv. Langdale: 12:20
ar. Horseshoe Bay: 13:00

After departing the ferry, head up Highway 1 and turn around somewhere to return back to Horseshoe Bay to get vehicle in line for the Nanaimo ferry.

5. Horseshoe Bay - Nanaimo (Departure Bay):
lv. Horseshoe Bay: 15:00
ar. Nanaimo: 16:35

Drive from Horseshoe Bay to Crofton, approx. 55 minutes (I'm not sure about the travel time on this one).

6. Crofton - Vesuvius:
lv. Crofton: 18:30 (it is a Friday so there is an 18:30 sailing)
ar. Vesuvius: 18:50

Drive down Saltspring Island to Fulford Harbour, approx. 30 minutes.

7. Fulford Harbour - Swartz Bay:
lv. Fulford: 19:50
ar. Swartz Bay: 20:25

Hopefully the ferry will be on time because it's going to be tight to get turned around on Highway 17, and make the return back to SWB to catch the 21:00 sailing to Tsawwassen. If all goes well, the return to the ferry holding compound should be completed by 20:40. Of course, I guess a reservation will not be an option since 20:40 is beyond the 30 minute cut-off time, so hopefully the 21:00 is not sold out.

8. Swartz Bay - Tsawwassen
lv. Swartz Bay: 21:00
ar. Tsawwassen: 22:35


According to my calculations, that puts the traveler back at the starting point just 10 minutes shy of 24 hours. That's 8 different ferry crossings which is quite a bit considering the distances involved. And, I can say that I have ridden ALL of the routes that I listed here (not in a 24 hour period, nor on the same trip) but I do have some familiarity with the distances and time involved. The date I chose is purely random. I wanted to pick a date that the ferry schedules cover, and I needed to pick a Friday for that Crofton sailing.

[Scott]

I read the same article in the Sound Crossings and thought it was pretty cool that WSF would be interested in publishing a story like that. I can't really see BC Ferries doing something like that.

[Nucksrule]

orcasnative said:

OK - I'm going to throw my hat into the ring here. I may (actually, probably) will get trounced by all of you BC residents who I'm sure know your ferry system better than I do, but here's my shot (with a vehicle):

Thu, 4-Oct-07
1. Tsawwassen to Duke Point:
lv Tsawwassen: 22:45
ar Duke Point: 00:45 (Fri, 5-Oct-07)

Overnight at hotel or some other accommodation in Nanaimo to get a few hours of sleep (very few!). Leave Nanaimo around 04:00 and drive to Little River, arriving around 05:30.

2. Comox (Little River) - Powell River (Westview):
lv Comox: 06:30
ar Powell River: 07:50

Drive from Powell River to Saltery bay, around 40 minutes.

3. Saltery Bay - Earls Cove:
lv SB: 09:25
ar EC: 10:15

Drive the Sunshine Coast Highway to Langdale, approx. 90 minutes.

From Earl's Cove to Langdale it is actually only about 65-75 minutes and on occasion I have driven that route in under an hour.

[D'Elete BC in NJ]

The 90 minutes let's you make up for the time the ferry will be late. Don't worry, as it is the third run of the day, you will probably have to try and make the peninsula trip in around an hour just to make the 12:20 out of Langdale.

[Kahloke]

So, what happened to the challenge? No one else ever posted anything - looks like it sort of died on the vine! Oh well. I still think the itinerary I posted above could be accomplished, at least in the off-season when there's less likely to be heavy traffic.