|
|
Post by Northern Exploration on Jul 5, 2008 18:24:59 GMT -8
Because it is what everyone who has signed onto the treaty has agreed to. And because do you want any vessels coming into your waters that don't meet the basic guidelines, getting in trouble, and costing funds for search and rescue etc. International treaties are signed for good reasons not to corner ourselves.
|
|
|
|
Post by ruddernut on Jul 5, 2008 18:31:35 GMT -8
Because it is what everyone who has signed onto the treaty has agreed to. And because do you want any vessels coming into your waters that don't meet the basic guidelines, getting in trouble, and costing funds for search and rescue etc. International treaties are signed for good reasons not to corner ourselves. We can set our own guidelines. If it meets our own national standards, it's good enough for us in our own waters. |
|
|
|
Post by Low Light Mike on Jul 5, 2008 19:19:27 GMT -8
But why can't they _______?
Why don't they just __________?
(I'll leave it for the answer-the-question crew to choose the question and to fill in the answers themselves. Once you answer-guys do that, I'll post follow-up short-snapper questions again. That way we can move at a snail's pace, and I conserve energy by only asking short questions which require the answer-crew to expend energy by giving long answers. It's a fun game).
|
|
|
|
Post by ruddernut on Jul 5, 2008 19:26:27 GMT -8
But why can't they _______? Why don't they just __________? (I'll leave it for the answer-the-question crew to choose the question and to fill in the answers themselves. Once you answer-guys do that, I'll post follow-up short-snapper questions again. That way we can move at a snail's pace, and I conserve energy by only asking short questions which require the answer-crew to expend energy by giving long answers. It's a fun game). Nothing wrong with keeping a convo going in a casual chat-like manner, is there? And you say I'm rude, obnoxious and overly critical of others? |
|
|
|
Post by Political Incorrectness on Jul 5, 2008 20:47:08 GMT -8
1st off, BCFS will NEVER take over the run
1. Money losing which BCFS does not want to have
2. Too hard to do with all the regulations and such
Why do we need an international bureaucracy? Well we let it happen as a people and not preventing all the crap that has occurred with Mr. Bush and all the political mumbo jumbo in Congress that a good chunk of citizens believe the only way we can change the system is change the people. If you would like me to do political rants, I will refer you to the why is the sky blue thread.
|
|
|
|
Post by SS San Mateo on Jul 5, 2008 21:38:30 GMT -8
Could they make the necessary SOLAS upgrades to some vessels they're looking to retire? It would also be cool if they could do some trial runs with the Coastal Celebration on it. Possibly, but it's been mentioned in other threads that the 4 vessels that have been or are soon to be retired have all been sold so it reallty wouldn't matter whether or not they could be upgraded to SOLAS standards. As for other vessels, the amount of traffic on that route wouldn't justify anything larger (in terms of car capacity) than the Burnaby or the Naniamo. |
|
Neil
Voyager 
Posts: 7,307
|
Post by Neil on Jul 5, 2008 22:27:24 GMT -8
I get the sense of people being led around from thread to thread, following one person's agenda in topics of varying degrees of futility. As a 'rudder' directs a ship, one person can steer the conversation, and it's a good idea to be sure you're going in a worthwhile direction. If that makes me "rude, obnoxious, and overly critical", I think I'm in good company.
|
|
|
|
Post by ruddernut on Jul 5, 2008 22:42:58 GMT -8
I get the sense of people being led around from thread to thread, following one person's agenda in topics of varying degrees of futility. As a 'rudder' directs a ship, one person can steer the conversation, and it's a good idea to be sure you're going in a worthwhile direction. If that makes me "rude, obnoxious, and overly critical", I think I'm in good company. This is a completely different topic, and I was on about a completely different matter. Injecting snide comments about my conversing style out of the blue without any relevance to the topic being discussed is hardly steering in the right direction. Quit the team play and cheerleading dude. |
|
|
|
Post by Low Light Mike on Jul 5, 2008 22:50:56 GMT -8
2 things that aren't too relevant to this topic:
1) Has anyone noticed that BOTH city's names are mis-spelled in this thread's header?
2) If I have a picture in my head of Neil holding cheerleader's pom-poms, how can I get that image out of my head? (perhaps by watching the video for NKOTB's "Summertime"? but that leads to different problems....).
re the "out of the blue" comments on style: I sometimes post what I'm usually thinking. I don't think it's a secret that I dislike your forum style. It annoys me consistently and so sometimes I feel the need to speak up about it.
|
|
|
|
Post by ruddernut on Jul 5, 2008 23:04:17 GMT -8
2) If I have a picture in my head of Neil holding cheerleader's pom-poms, how can I get that image out of my head? (perhaps by watching the video for NKOTB's "Summertime"? but that leads to different problems....). It's a good thing I avoided the use of certain other metaphors with more explicit imagery to infer the same point.  |
|
|
|
Post by Low Light Mike on Jul 5, 2008 23:10:17 GMT -8
2) If I have a picture in my head of Neil holding cheerleader's pom-poms, how can I get that image out of my head? (perhaps by watching the video for NKOTB's "Summertime"? but that leads to different problems....). It's a good thing I avoided the use of certain other metaphors with more explicit imagery to infer the same point. And that point was what? The team-play thing confused me a bit, as isn't that a positive? |
|
|
|
Post by ruddernut on Jul 5, 2008 23:41:29 GMT -8
It's a good thing I avoided the use of certain other metaphors with more explicit imagery to infer the same point. And that point was what? The team-play thing confused me a bit, as isn't that a positive? That is, if you see siding with friends over arguing objectively on principle as a positive. |
|
|
|
Post by Guest 99 on Jul 6, 2008 1:07:38 GMT -8
I think I see some issues coming up that where around here last month.
|
|
|
|
Post by BreannaF on Jul 6, 2008 3:55:00 GMT -8
At long last, it appears Washington State Ferries will get a three-year lease to land boats at the Sidney, British Columbia, dock operated by rival BC Ferries. If they're such "rivals", why don't they compete with them and try and take over the route completely? I bet WSF would be glad to get a route that operates at a loss off their hands and free up some vessels with their current fleet shortage. Imagine an Anacortes-Sidney run with a gift shop, Seawest Lounge, video arcades, notebook carrels and possibly even a buffet. Which jurisdiction does that route benefit more anyways? BC or Washington? Shouldn't both sides chip in, like they do with cross-border highways? I would like to officially take this opportunity to amend my comments of last March. I suppose, technically, "rival" was not the best choice of words in this situation. Perhaps I should have referred to BC Ferries as a "peer" to WSF. Perhaps we would be best served by referring to them as a neighbouring friend. Better, I think I will make amends for confusing you by rewriting this sentence to end with "those folks over at BC Ferries." Further, to correct other potentially confusing terms in that sentence, a "lease" is a contract by which one conveys real estate, equipment, or facilities for a specified term and for a specified rent; and all references to "BC Ferries" in this matter refers to British Columbia Ferry Services Inc. I hope that clarifies this matter. I offer my sincerest apologies for being the start of this confusion As a token of my apology, and in the spirit of the title of this thread, I offer a soothing photo of Sidney-bound passengers boarding a ferry at Anacortes:  While I made no direct observation of it's arrival in Sidney that day, references as to the fact that the Anacortes-Sidney ferry made a successful journey on that day are available upon request. In other matters, my Mother offers the following quote: "If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all." |
|
|
|
Post by Low Light Mike on Jul 6, 2008 8:24:50 GMT -8
I think I see some issues coming up that where around here last month. Actually, those issues are present a lot of the time. And they were around earlier than even last month. I have now re-read the thread here, and I can see that what caused me to interject in this thread were posts #35 and #37. The "why can't we...." and "it's good enough" type of comments (and these are not unique types of comments from this contributor). So I think that posts #35 & #37 in sequence were a trigger-point for me, to be understood in the overall context of this person's recent/historical style/content of posting on this forum. Every once in a while, I've had enough of a style that annoys me, and I feel the need to speak up. (not to change the world, or anyone's mind, with my words, but just to speak up to have my interjection heard). I understand that, I think Ruddernut understands that, and I think that other regular readers understand that too. We also understand that no one's really going to change re these issues, and so really I'm just letting off some steam. There, I feel better now.....  |
|
|
|
Post by landlocked on Jul 6, 2008 9:22:36 GMT -8
I find it interesting when everyone seems to be dwelling on the term 'rival'.
One of the biggest challenges to a private ferry service or an airline for that matter is 'who controls your terminals and what do you have to pay for them?' In the case of Sidney, the terminal is no longer controlled by the town of Sidney, but BC Ferries - for the next 38-39 years! Why did they do that? Perhaps so no competitio could get there hands on it? Suppose some johnny come lately came along and started running passengers from Vancouver harbour to Sidney. Did anyone think of that?
So, if Black Ball had picked up the Sidney terminal, would that be a rival of WSF? How about Clipper? How about WSF? Why not BCFS? Why aren't they a rival? Suppose someone comes along and picked up, let's say the Burnaby, repowered her and starting using the Sidney terminal. If WSF were to promote the living heck out of the Anacortes Sidney run, and then their new landlord jacks up the rent so high, it's no longer feasible? So, let's say the Burnaby has been in layup at Deas. Repower, coat of paint and away they go, she's now on the Sidney - Anacortes run.
When the word rival is used, I believe it to be so. Here's a company that has deep pockets, particularly when it comes to promoting BC as a tourist destination. That wouldn't be a very hard sell if they were creating a business plan for the run. They have a fleet of ferries, some smaller ones that are no longer useful on daily runs. What would stop them from refurbishing one of them and putting it on an international run? Nothing. Plus, added bonus, they already control the Sidney terminal!
Don't say that they would never look at a run such as Anacortes or Port Angeles for that matter. They have the resources, the internal expertise, the vessels, and now the terminal.
|
|
|
|
Post by landlocked on Jul 6, 2008 9:26:21 GMT -8
Correction to last post - I meant would WMG be competition to WSF. Well, they do own three slightly used ferries don't they?
Or, if you were David Hahn and you heard that WMG were planning to get into the ferry business, and you heard they were interested in coming to Victoria AND the Sidney terminal was up for grabs, wouldn't you want to thwart that possible competition?
|
|
|
|
Post by Low Light Mike on Jul 6, 2008 10:14:34 GMT -8
Or, if you were David Hahn and you heard that WMG were planning to get into the ferry business, and you heard they were interested in coming to Victoria AND the Sidney terminal was up for grabs, wouldn't you want to thwart that possible competition? Absolutely, I (as Hahn) would want to thwart any possible competition. Especially since the new (since 2003) privitised setup requires Hahn to maximize the company's profits in order to secure bond-issue financing to pay for the huge current & upcoming new ship purchases. He has no choice but to be the shrewdest businessman that he can be. Let me throw in a comparison of this BCFS situation to that of the CBC re bidding for broadcast rights in Canada, especially re Olympics broadcasting. That's a situation where a public entity is competing with private entities for the same prize. And the CBC has an unfair advantage of taxpayer cash that it can use to help itself overbid on broadcast rights that a private broadcaster would otherwise get. Now the difference between the CBC scenario and the BCFS scenario is that the CBC is currently allowed to play the role of "public broadcaster", and doesn't necessarily need to compete for these broadcast rights, if it doesn't want to. But imagine if the CBC were morphed into a BC Ferries style of quasi-private enterprise? Then the CBC's bidding wars for broadcast rights would then take on a new level of unfairness as it would use its portion of Gov't funds to kill competition to ensure its own survival. And the result of the CBC having to focus it's attention on winning lucrative broadcast-rights (in order to survive on its own) would be the sacrifice of traditional CBC offerings such as local & non-commercial programming. Hey, that's kind of similar to what's happened to BC Ferries re post-2003: It has to play the role of "looking for profit" in order to survive, and this takes its focus away from the original, traditional service offerings that it used to provide back in the day when it didn't have to focus on being self-sustaining. And to get back to Landlocked's point: That's why BC Ferries has to do preemptive strikes such as the Sidney terminal lease, in order to ensure its own survival in this company structure that's been mandated for BC Ferries. |
|
|
|
Post by EGfleet on Jul 6, 2008 10:42:33 GMT -8
1st off, BCFS will NEVER take over the run 1. Money losing which BCFS does not want to have 2. Too hard to do with all the regulations and such Why do we need an international bureaucracy? Well we let it happen as a people and not preventing all the crap that has occurred with Mr. Bush and all the political mumbo jumbo in Congress that a good chunk of citizens believe the only way we can change the system is change the people. If you would like me to do political rants, I will refer you to the why is the sky blue thread. ...I'll also throw in here that: 1. the existing contract that B.C. Ferries signed with the City of Sidney specifically states WSF is to remain the priority user of said dock 2. Washington State law forbids any rival company from operating within five miles of a state owned/operated ferry terminal. That pretty much knocks out the San Juans. You can argue the term "rival" if you want, but WSF has said in the press repeatedly they consider BCF a "competitor." And before you say "How did they operate out of Seattle to Victoria" way back when, WSF has never operated a Seattle to Victoria run, therefore that run was not in direct competition with WSF. (The Kalakala ran from Port Angeles to Victoria) Don't forget, Kitsap Transit had to get a waiver/amendment to the law to operate their passenger only service to Seattle. I'm not saying it isn't possible at some point that the law could be changed and BCF could operate the international run, but frankly with as many times as they've said they're not interested, I'm inclined to believe them. Promoted or not, it is a very tourist-driven run, and only really makes a profit probably from late May until September. Beyond that it is not uncommon during the week to take a whopping ten cars in either direction. There's a bump in traffic during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, but that's it. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see WSF further scale back the run to operate from say May to October. You have to figure that BCF has looked at our traffic figures over the years on the Sidney run--which has dropped every year for the last ten years--and have figured it simply isn't worth the headache/expense. |
|
Neil
Voyager
Posts: 7,307
|
Post by Neil on Jul 6, 2008 11:25:41 GMT -8
BC Ferries didn't beat out a long list of rivals to manage the Sidney terminal. As far as we know, they were the only ferry operator (or potential ferry operator, for that matter) to bid on it.
BC Ferries has, in fact, no spare vessels they could operate on the run. Hahn has been clear that they are not expanding the fleet, and the Queen of Burnaby is not available, nor do their long term plans indicate that it will be.
From time to time, people have expressed the belief that there are players just waiting to jump into the car ferry business on our coast. The long term inactivity of WMG's cats, and the lack of apparent interest from any actual shipping firms seems to contradict that. I think the situation at Sidney is not much more than what meets the eye.
p.s.- could we get the heading of this thread fixed?
|
|
|
|
Post by ruddernut on Jul 6, 2008 13:20:56 GMT -8
I find it interesting when everyone seems to be dwelling on the term 'rival'. One of the biggest challenges to a private ferry service or an airline for that matter is 'who controls your terminals and what do you have to pay for them?' In the case of Sidney, the terminal is no longer controlled by the town of Sidney, but BC Ferries - for the next 38-39 years! Why did they do that? Perhaps so no competitio could get there hands on it? Suppose some johnny come lately came along and started running passengers from Vancouver harbour to Sidney. Did anyone think of that? So, if Black Ball had picked up the Sidney terminal, would that be a rival of WSF? How about Clipper? How about WSF? Why not BCFS? Why aren't they a rival? Suppose someone comes along and picked up, let's say the Burnaby, repowered her and starting using the Sidney terminal. If WSF were to promote the living heck out of the Anacortes Sidney run, and then their new landlord jacks up the rent so high, it's no longer feasible? So, let's say the Burnaby has been in layup at Deas. Repower, coat of paint and away they go, she's now on the Sidney - Anacortes run. When the word rival is used, I believe it to be so. Here's a company that has deep pockets, particularly when it comes to promoting BC as a tourist destination. That wouldn't be a very hard sell if they were creating a business plan for the run. They have a fleet of ferries, some smaller ones that are no longer useful on daily runs. What would stop them from refurbishing one of them and putting it on an international run? Nothing. Plus, added bonus, they already control the Sidney terminal! Don't say that they would never look at a run such as Anacortes or Port Angeles for that matter. They have the resources, the internal expertise, the vessels, and now the terminal. Thank you. At last, somebody has come forth and answered the question in a sensible and comprehensible manner, amid all the snooty and elitist attitude and bickering exhibited thus far (regarding posting style, types of questions asked, etc.). |
|
|
|
Post by ruddernut on Jul 6, 2008 13:31:50 GMT -8
If they're such "rivals", why don't they compete with them and try and take over the route completely? I bet WSF would be glad to get a route that operates at a loss off their hands and free up some vessels with their current fleet shortage. Imagine an Anacortes-Sidney run with a gift shop, Seawest Lounge, video arcades, notebook carrels and possibly even a buffet. Which jurisdiction does that route benefit more anyways? BC or Washington? Shouldn't both sides chip in, like they do with cross-border highways? I would like to officially take this opportunity to amend my comments of last March. I suppose, technically, "rival" was not the best choice of words in this situation. Perhaps I should have referred to BC Ferries as a "peer" to WSF. Perhaps we would be best served by referring to them as a neighbouring friend. Better, I think I will make amends for confusing you by rewriting this sentence to end with "those folks over at BC Ferries." Further, to correct other potentially confusing terms in that sentence, a "lease" is a contract by which one conveys real estate, equipment, or facilities for a specified term and for a specified rent; and all references to "BC Ferries" in this matter refers to British Columbia Ferry Services Inc. I hope that clarifies this matter. I offer my sincerest apologies for being the start of this confusion As a token of my apology, and in the spirit of the title of this thread, I offer a soothing photo of Sidney-bound passengers boarding a ferry at Anacortes:  While I made no direct observation of it's arrival in Sidney that day, references as to the fact that the Anacortes-Sidney ferry made a successful journey on that day are available upon request. In other matters, my Mother offers the following quote: "If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all."Chill man. It was obviously taken from the context of the newspaper article quoted, not your own word, and I was just wondering why the two public ferry companies that run completely different routes perceive each other as rivals. |
|
|
|
Post by ruddernut on Jul 6, 2008 13:52:35 GMT -8
I'm not saying it isn't possible at some point that the law could be changed and BCF could operate the international run, but frankly with as many times as they've said they're not interested, I'm inclined to believe them. Promoted or not, it is a very tourist-driven run, and only really makes a profit probably from late May until September. Beyond that it is not uncommon during the week to take a whopping ten cars in either direction. Do you mean ten cars for the whole week in total, with a sailing averaging only one car on the deck? If anyone knows, how does its traffic compare to the WA-VI traffic of BCF Route 1 anyways? They ought to look into capturing more of that market, and save the passengers the roundabout drive through Tsawwassen. That would make the two ferry companies rivals in a true sense, but it is the responsibility of public transportation providers to minimize waste as much as possible. |
|
|
|
Post by EGfleet on Jul 6, 2008 14:25:39 GMT -8
No, I meant ten cars on the way up, ten on the way back.
Weekends sometimes no more than 30 cars in either direction.
Before they quit running during the winter, there were cases when there were no cars in either direction for the sailing.
|
|
|
|
Post by Barnacle on Jul 6, 2008 14:54:49 GMT -8
Could they make the necessary SOLAS upgrades to some vessels they're looking to retire? Been over this before, too... very expensive to retrofit, borderline unfeasible from a construction basis, and you'd still have a 40-year-old boat with a limited lifespan at the end of it. There aren't enough tourists killing for it, apparently. |
|
