Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 20, 2013 10:43:43 GMT -8
As long as the lie berals are in charge, mayhem and confusion will reign at B C Ferries.
Of course public input will fall on deaf ears as it has in the past.
Anyone whom doesn't agree I have three words for you-"Queen of Chilliwack"
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Post by Low Light Mike on May 23, 2013 15:20:14 GMT -8
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Post by Scott on May 23, 2013 21:17:33 GMT -8
I got through the first 80 pages or so... here are some notes: Page 12 - They talk about eventually replacing the QUEEN OF CAPILANO and QUEEN OF CUMBERLAND with this class - I feel old! Page 13/32 - I see they're tinkering with the idea of getting permission to get rid of Route 40. Page 15 - Their target "in service dates" begin in less than 3 years. Probably means a foreign builder? (Page 49 elaborates - they sent out feelers to 24 shipyards in Canada and overseas and recieved positive interest from 16) Page 22 - The SFU mathematicians figure Texada only needs a ferry half the size of the NIP. Page 39 - Regarding the benefits of an open deck ferry: Page 42 - BC Ferries hasn't made a decision on "ancillary sevice options" (onboard amenities), but has 4 options. For Route 9, the full service cafeteria/retail actually makes the most economic sense. On Route 17 a "snack bar" gives BC Ferries the most economic return. However, in the interest of standardizing the intermediate vessels, the most economical choice combining both routes would be a slightly enchanced snack bar with very limited retail. BC Ferries wants to present the options of onboard amenities in the context of whether travellers are willing to pay more at the ticket booth to have these services available. Page 44 - They list the service speed of the QUEEN OF BURNABY and the QUEEN OF NANAIMO as 13.5 knots. I thought it was more like 16. (On page 61, the BURNABY's speed is listed as 16.5). Page 46 - Poor old QUEEN OF CHILLIWACK... no respect! Page 71 - I like how the QUEEN OF NANAIMO operates at 101.1% on Fridays from Tsawwassen during the peak season. Hopefully the TSB isn't reading! Overall, I think it's a decent plan. One thing I worry about is that all the emphasis is on AEQ and vehicle capacity. For Route 17, that might make sense, but for Route 9 wouldn't passenger capacity be a concern as well? They're planning on replacing the 1,000 passenger NANAIMO with a 600 passenger boat. Granted, they're allowing for a 600 passenger relief vessel, but realistically, won't that just be a summer ship? They're not going to bring the relief ship into service for 2 days on the May long weekend or for busy spring Friday/Sunday runs. Will 600 pax capacity be enough? Another issue I think, could be the service speed of the vessels. If the QUEEN OF BURNABY actually does operate at 16.5 knots and the new vessel at around 14.5, will they have to adjust the schedule? For route 9, perhaps the versatility of being a double-ender would help make up time lost with a slower service speed. - John H
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Mayne
Voyager
I come from a long line of sinners like me
Posts: 289
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Post by Mayne on May 23, 2013 21:44:40 GMT -8
I just finished reading more or less the entire thing minus a lot of the SFU graphs. John said most of the same though that I had over everything.
As was stated in the meeting I was in attendance for in Richmond where covered in the E-mails that where listed but the speed of the ships where never covered, and I do find the 13.5 knots disbelieving. And I am also surprised that no opinion was given for the on board services was given.
I sent a e-mail over route 9A would it be extended farther in to the "on season" or not, I was given a very vague answer when asked during our consultation in Richmond, and as John stated 600 passenger capacity on long weekends in the off season just wont work. I also have a issue with there numbers because of there in ability to measure people who want and or try to make a reservation and the boat is full. I can think of countless times when myself or family members are unable to get to the SGI because the boat is fully reserved weeks in advance, and to me this makes the numbers sued.
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Post by Low Light Mike on May 24, 2013 6:01:56 GMT -8
I got through the first 80 pages or so... here are some notes: Thanks for your notes, John. I also found it amusing how they were dumping on the Chilliwack, even noting that she's currently unsuitable for Route-40, and Route-17 (translation: she's currently unsuitable for any BCF purpose). I also soon realized that this is a biased document, where BCFS management wants new vessels, and they are making their case Against the "life extension" option which they are required to consider. It's a pretty interesting condemnation of the current state of repair of the 'Burnaby and 'Nanaimo. - On one hand you've got some at BCFS saying that everything is safe and ok, in the context of promoting the ferries and trumping the relative safety of ferry travel. - On the other hand, you've got this report being brutally honest in how unsafe and unreliable these 2 ships are.
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Post by Dane on May 24, 2013 6:19:17 GMT -8
An interesting read, thanks for posting that.
With that document being released it provides some more substantiation to my early support for this project. The direction BCFS is heading, in general, appears to be sound from both a capacity and fiscal stand point. While criticism will be directed towards BCFS that ferries that do everything and carry large amount of vehicles, the fiscal realities of the province and the ferry service will not (easily) allow this.
While I remain fundamentally opposed to the governance and management structures of BCFS, this seems like one of their more logical ideas.
I wonder how that cable ferry ties into fleet standardization.
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Post by compdude787 on May 24, 2013 10:49:52 GMT -8
I wonder how that cable ferry ties into fleet standardization. Hehehe... Me too! They should ditch that whole project and build an 85-car ICF vessel instead of the Cable ferry.
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Post by compdude787 on May 24, 2013 10:57:10 GMT -8
I also soon realized that this is a biased document, where BCFS management wants new vessels, and they are making their case Against the "life extension" option which they are required to consider. It's a pretty interesting condemnation of the current state of repair of the 'Burnaby and 'Nanaimo. - On one hand you've got some at BCFS saying that everything is safe and ok, in the context of promoting the ferries and trumping the relative safety of ferry travel. - On the other hand, you've got this report being brutally honest in how unsafe and unreliable these 2 ships are. I'm not surprised at the bias in this document. Essentially what they're doing is writing a super-long persuasive essay to convince the ferry commissioner that new ferries are needed and that he (or the legislative assembly?) should provide the money to do so. They definitely are over-exaggerating about the unreliability of the Burnaby and Nanaimo, which definitely are going to get less reliable over the years, with or without a life extension. Given the age of the vessels already, a life-extension is really not worth it anyway, so they really want to make the case that they need to be retired and replaced.
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Mill Bay
Voyager
Long Suffering Bosun
Posts: 2,886
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Post by Mill Bay on May 25, 2013 21:23:33 GMT -8
An interesting read, thanks for posting that. With that document being released it provides some more substantiation to my early support for this project. The direction BCFS is heading, in general, appears to be sound from both a capacity and fiscal stand point. While criticism will be directed towards BCFS that ferries that do everything and carry large amount of vehicles, the fiscal realities of the province and the ferry service will not (easily) allow this. While I remain fundamentally opposed to the governance and management structures of BCFS, this seems like one of their more logical ideas. I wonder how that cable ferry ties into fleet standardization. They are actually seeming to be a little bit off on their capacity projections, and seem to be already planning for vessels that will not be able to accommodate overflows. If they truly want to standardize the fleet, and have interoperability of the ships, then all of the ships should be built to at least address the minimum capacity for periods of peak traffic flow for any route they might service with excess capacity built in to handle the different routes and busy periods as needed. As I mentioned before: with the technology available today for propulsion, hull design and energy efficiency, there should be no problem with over building something like a ferry, and they should in fact be openly designing these ferries as excess capacity to deal with necessary fluctuations. If their engineering and design work are done properly, the excess capacity, or empty space in any design would ultimately be, at worst, revenue neutral. It should be seen as not adversely affecting the operating expenses of the vessel, but at least you will have the functional ability to accommodate extra capacity when the time comes.
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Post by Low Light Mike on Jul 23, 2013 9:18:44 GMT -8
Big news today: The Ferry Commissioner has approved BCFS' plan for the 3 new intermediate ships.
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Post by princessofvanfan on Jul 23, 2013 10:39:27 GMT -8
:-[It's gonna be tough watching these two, the last stretched but unlifted ships, leave our waters for scrapping. 2 1/2 years left...gonna have to get a couple more trips in on each.
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Post by Mike C on Jul 23, 2013 11:22:35 GMT -8
This caught my eye. Peak and shoulder season? Does this mean we could see Route 9A extend past the Summer Schedule, perhaps start in Easter and end in the fall, and maybe even holiday season service? One would hope so, as I imagine that a 145-vehicle vessel would be inadequate for those peak periods (the Nanaimo already has trouble keeping up with traffic levels during those times).
And now the question remains, who will get the contract? One would imagine that after BC Ferries' experience with the Island Sky, a single ship of similar size, (two years late and the shipyard losing $14 million) that they would likely go elsewhere. I had hoped that the Federal naval contract would have been underway by this time, preparing Vancouver for this large ferry contract. So, in the eyes of BCFS, are our shipyards better off than they were six years ago? I guess we'll find out in five months...
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Neil
Voyager
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Post by Neil on Jul 23, 2013 13:21:28 GMT -8
This caught my eye. Peak and shoulder season? Does this mean we could see Route 9A extend past the Summer Schedule, perhaps start in Easter and end in the fall, and maybe even holiday season service? One would hope so, as I imagine that a 145-vehicle vessel would be inadequate for those peak periods (the Nanaimo already has trouble keeping up with traffic levels during those times). And now the question remains, who will get the contract? One would imagine that after BC Ferries' experience with the Island Sky, a single ship of similar size, (two years late and the shipyard losing $14 million) that they would likely go elsewhere. I had hoped that the Federal naval contract would have been underway by this time, preparing Vancouver for this large ferry contract. So, in the eyes of BCFS, are our shipyards better off than they were six years ago? I guess we'll find out in five months... Keel laying for the Island Sky was in December of '06, and the press release at that time said she would be in service by the summer of '08. She actually entered service in early February of '09... six months or so late, not two years. The more I think about these new vessels, the more concerned I am about off season service on route nine. The capacity of 145 AEQ is only achieved through the use of gallery and retractable decks. The main car deck only holds 85 AEQ; the same as the ' Cumberland. With fixed gallery decks, and with the platform decks in use, how much room can there be for overheights? Two lanes, maybe? Perhaps only one? The summer plan is to end the 'milk run', and have each vessel serve only two islands, but what about the off season, when traffic for four islands is going to be threaded on board? At busy times, how much room would there be to turn vehicles around, as happens on the ' Nanaimo? This new vessel is considerably smaller, although perhaps no more narrow. Overheights and loading logistics could present problems. Initially, the increase in total capacity that this project brought looked like a win, but the way that capacity is achieved may pose considerable operational deficiencies. Even on the Comox run, there will be drawbacks. The graphs in the project proposal show that on certain runs in the summer, there will always be overloads with a 145 car vessel; a real drawback for service when there is a four hour wait between sailings.
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Post by compdude787 on Jul 23, 2013 14:05:58 GMT -8
The more I think about these new vessels, the more concerned I am about off season service on route nine. The capacity of 145 AEQ is only achieved through the use of gallery and retractable decks. The main car deck only holds 85 AEQ; the same as the ' Cumberland. With fixed gallery decks, and with the platform decks in use, how much room can there be for overheights? Two lanes, maybe? Perhaps only one? The summer plan is to end the 'milk run', and have each vessel serve only two islands, but what about the off season, when traffic for four islands is going to be threaded on board? At busy times, how much room would there be to turn vehicles around, as happens on the ' Nanaimo? This new vessel is considerably smaller, although perhaps no more narrow. Overheights and loading logistics could present problems. Initially, the increase in total capacity that this project brought looked like a win, but the way that capacity is achieved may pose considerable operational deficiencies. Even on the Comox run, there will be drawbacks. The graphs in the project proposal show that on certain runs in the summer, there will always be overloads with a 145 car vessel; a real drawback for service when there is a four hour wait between sailings. There would be two lanes for overheights when the platform decks are in use on the 145-car ferries. But since trucks tend to be pretty wide, there would really be only one lane for overheights. My biggest concern about these vessels is the small passenger cabin. It makes no sense to replace a vessel that can hold 1000 passengers with one that can only hold 600. They really need to make the cabin bigger. There's plenty of room to extend it, even without sacrificing the pickleforks.
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Post by gordon on Jul 23, 2013 15:10:39 GMT -8
The capacity of the 2 primary ships is roughly a 25% cut per ship. should B.C. Ferries not be building in at lest a slight capacity increase to take care of any possible future growth?
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Post by Blue Bus Fan on Jul 23, 2013 15:32:12 GMT -8
The LNG feature of the design seems really good for retrofitting the tanks onto the ferry because it will not costs as much to put tanks on the boat.
Is lengthening a key design element in the 145 car vessels?
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Post by Blue Bus Fan on Jul 23, 2013 15:41:07 GMT -8
This caught my eye. Peak and shoulder season? Does this mean we could see Route 9A extend past the Summer Schedule, perhaps start in Easter and end in the fall, and maybe even holiday season service? One would hope so, as I imagine that a 145-vehicle vessel would be inadequate for those peak periods (the Nanaimo already has trouble keeping up with traffic levels during those times). I find this a good idea because it increase the capacity of this route during the busy periods. I think the two boat service will start the second Sunday in May and end after Thanks giving long week and operate for Christmas season.
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Post by princessofvanfan on Jul 23, 2013 17:54:30 GMT -8
At any rate, we're probably looking at three more Island Sky types (yawn). I like the Island Sky well enough, but that design is so uninspired and lacking in character.
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Post by compdude787 on Jul 23, 2013 19:29:31 GMT -8
I like the Island Sky well enough, but that design is so uninspired and lacking in character. Totally agree about that! I feel the same way about the Coastals; the Cs look a lot better and they don't look so top-heavy as the Coastals look. Remember the concept drawings for the Super Cs? Those looked way uglier than what was built, so here's to hoping that these new vessels end up looking nicer than what we see in the concept drawings that have been released thus far.
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Post by princessofvanfan on Jul 23, 2013 23:03:05 GMT -8
I like the Island Sky well enough, but that design is so uninspired and lacking in character. Totally agree about that! I feel the same way about the Coastals; the Cs look a lot better and they don't look so top-heavy as the Coastals look. Remember the concept drawings for the Super Cs? Those looked way uglier than what was built, so here's to hoping that these new vessels end up looking nicer than what we see in the concept drawings that have been released thus far. It's settled, then. We shall commission new ships that are exact replicas of the Queens of Sidney and Tsawwassen, plus a new Princess of Vancouver. These new ships will, of course, have the latest in safety and navagational equipment and capability. Hey, they're building a new Titanic, aren't they?
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Post by gordon on Jul 24, 2013 7:50:20 GMT -8
These 3 new vessels would likely be built locally because ships of this size would not be capable of a voyage like the Coastals did from Germany.
Mike Corrigan is on Bill Good right now.
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Kam
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Post by Kam on Jul 24, 2013 8:54:51 GMT -8
These 3 new vessels would likely be built locally because ships of this size would not be capable of a voyage like the Coastals did from Germany. Mike Corrigan is on Bill Good right now. One of the Dockwise ships could easily move them.
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Neil
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Post by Neil on Jul 24, 2013 9:04:53 GMT -8
These 3 new vessels would likely be built locally because ships of this size would not be capable of a voyage like the Coastals did from Germany. Mike Corrigan is on Bill Good right now. People have crossed the Atlantic in twelve foot rowboats. I have no idea why these vessels couldn't do it.
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Post by gordon on Jul 24, 2013 9:21:44 GMT -8
I wonder what B.C. Ferries' rational is for building new vessels with such a decrease of capacity.
I would assume that bow & stern of these vessels will be closed in in some way.
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Post by compdude787 on Jul 24, 2013 9:22:45 GMT -8
These 3 new vessels would likely be built locally because ships of this size would not be capable of a voyage like the Coastals did from Germany. Mike Corrigan is on Bill Good right now. People have crossed the Atlantic in twelve foot rowboats. I have no idea why these vessels couldn't do it. True enough, but it's all about liability, and you wouldn't want something bad happening and one of those boats sinking on the way here...
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