Another of Christy Clark's sparkle ponies dies

Let's see ... how should we word this?

You may not like fucking BC Ferries, but BC Ferries likes fucking you!

BC Ferries, A CORPORATION IN WHICH THE ONLY SHAREHOLDER IS THE PROVINCE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA which is wholly funded by the taxpayers of British Columbia, which makes it a citizen owned entity, has announced that it is building its next three ships in Poland. 

Isn't that just about the most interesting thing you've heard in the last ten minutes?

Seaspan, the only Canadian shipbuilder on the short list for construction, withdrew its bid because it could not guarantee delivery before 2017. Its order book, according to Seaspan, is full, primarily due to a federal government order for an entire fleet of new ships.

Except for one small item. They haven't even ordered the steel for the ships ordered by the federal government because the Harper government has played this like a dog fucking a football.

And Christy Clark? Well she's a mid-day radio blather-head so far out of her depth as to be laughable if she wasn't so goddamned dangerous.

Here you go Clark! Chew on your own fucking words!

"It won’t be just a matter of us building BC Ferries," Clark said. "We want to build ferries for countries all over the world here."

 When that pitchfork hits her in the ass we can only hope she deflates as fast as her sparkle ponies.

Stormy week on the west coast

Sunday, 22 January 2012, was not a good day for BC Ferries. Or more accurately, it was not a good day for travellers intent on using BC Ferries to get anywhere. Shortly after 9 a.m. Sunday the sustained winds across Vancouver Island started to lay a beating on the place, from Juan de Fuca Strait in the south to Queen Charlotte Strait in the north.

BC Ferries, very wisely, stopped operating a majority of routes exposed to extreme winds. Route 1, the heavily travelled Swartz Bay (Victoria) Tsawwassen (Vancouver) saw the cancellation of at least 4 large ship departures from each terminal from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. That undoubtedly threw a spanner into the works of travel plans for many people. Even the Brentwood Bay - Mill Bay route suffered cancellations because the usually sheltered Saanich Inlet was ripped up by high winds.

And you could hear the bleating all the way to Port Aux Basque, NL; People berating BC Ferries for something over which nobody had any control and howls that ferry crews didn't have the stuff to handle a little bit of rough weather.

They have more than the stuff. And the masters of those ships made the right decision. To those who loudly complained about the scuttling of plans and decided it was the fault of BC Ferries, it might be time to blame somebody else.

Try yourself for a start. If you cannot or are too lazy to read a weather forecast and include it in your winter-season travel planning, that's a condition no one else can rectify.

I am among the first to bore into BC Ferries when it does things which are obviously unsafe or when safety is not a primary element of their planning and decisions. I will not, however, find fault when a decision is taken not to put their passengers at risk.

So, take a look at the graphic at the top. Click on it and look hard. That's not what happened. That's what's going to happen. Another of a continuing string of mid-latitude depressions piling in from the central Pacific is going to do it all over again. Figure on Tuesday.

Gimme some of that ole time safety

If you live in Moose Jaw (note: two words) you probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about BC Ferries. On the other hand, if you're planning on a vacation which involves world-class flower gardens or whales or even just a decent cup of tea, you're probably going to end up on a BC Ferry at some time. Anyway, your tax dollars, (Yup! Even federal ones), go into making that stretch of water a part of the Trans-Canada highway ... so you should care a little bit.

Back here there were links back to a couple sites which hauled up some information on BC Ferries and that more-than-inconvenient crash into the dock which, just before the Christmas/New Years rush, put Duke Point terminal out of business.

Now, I have always been a bit mystified by double-ended ships, particularly large ones like the Coastal Inspiration. I cut my teeth on twin-screw, stern propulsion systems, even if the first of them was a relic which required burning the furniture to maintain 16 knots. I have always preferred that both engines produce power out the stern for a variety of reasons. But, that's just me.

Vancouver journalist Chris Montgomery has done some serious digging into the possible causes of Coastal Inspiration's latest mishap and it is truly worth the read.

It brings to mind something an old Master once told me in my first passenger ship: If you're counting up redundant systems and you're still on the fingers of one hand, you probably don't have enough. (Although three layers of redundancy should work if you maintain regular practice).

Something they would rather not discuss ...

Unless you live in British Columbia you might not consider yourself affected by the goings on at BC Ferries. That would be until you realize that, while BC Ferries fares have skyrocketed since they became not-quite-a-Crown-corporation at the hands of Gordon "privatize-everything" Campbell, they also receive provincial and federal taxpayer subsidies.

On 22 December the relatively new Coastal Inspiration slammed into the berth at Duke Point, just outside Nanaimo. The result was about 12 people with minor injuries, a ship that is out of service until the vehicle deck weathertight doors are repaired and a shut down of the strategically important Duke Point terminal for months.

I have a pretty good idea what happened but, unlike the grossly uninformed commenters to the various media outlets carrying the story, and the failure of those media outlets to actually blow away the dust to see the real story, there is a story out there.

On The Waterfront started by looking below the surface. Tidal Station reaches in and pulls out some guts. What is interesting is that BC Ferries, once Campbell had crowbarred it away from government oversight, had refused to cooperate with any Freedom Of Information requests on the basis that they were a "private" company. In October 2010 they were compelled to behave as what they actually are - a government-owned operation - and started answering FOI requests. They didn't come along nicely either.

What Tidal Station produces is something that BC Ferries probably did not want you to know (since it was kept hidden away until forced into the light by an FOI request). The propulsion system on those awesome Super C ferries was a source of concern before they even finished building. In fact, the potential problem described in the 2007 report is likely exactly what happened.

BC Ferries keeps on truckin' those coincidences

RossK at The Gazetteer may be on to something here :

Starting Wednesday (Oct 14th), B.C. Ferries will reduce the Horseshoe Bay/Departure Bay sailings Monday through Thursday evenings.

Deborah Marshall with the corporation explains it will include the 7 p.m. sailing exiting Departure Bay, and the corresponding 9 p.m. sailing from Horseshoe Bay.

and then he links to Sean Holman at Public Eye :

"A Delta-based company that ships tractor trailers between Vancouver Island and the Mainland appears to have hired the premier's former special advisor Ken Dobell to lobby the province. But the firm is tight-lipped about whether that lobbying has to do with increased competition from British Columbia Ferry Services Inc. The government-owned private company got into the same business this year, letting truck drivers drop their trailers off at its Tsawwassen, Duke Point and Swartz Bay terminals. Those trailers are then loaded onto the ferry for pickup on the other side of the route."

So Seaspan appears to have hired Ken Dobell, Gordo's special advisor and former deputy minister, to lobby Gordo about competition from BC Ferries, and now some sailings have been cut back.

Huh.

The world is officially nuts - part 1

This is from a pamphlet I picked up over the weekend as I headed off for yet another of my unscheduled trips.

Getting Involved

Everyone can assist by reporting suspicious activities to any (company) employee. Such activities include:

Unusual recording or monitoring activities, including the use of cameras, note taking, drawing diagrams, annotating on maps or using binoculars or other vision-enhancing devices; Unusual or heightened interest in restricted or prohibited areas; ....

So, you probably think I found that in some US location, right?

Wrong.

Try BC Ferries.

It is right out of the brochure rack on the Queen of Oak Bay, (where they proudly serve coffee roasted by an American company), and is a BC Ferries produced handout describing company security procedures.

Can you imagine reporting someone on a BC Ferry for using a camera? Ohhh Nooees! That tourist is taking a picture of the Pacific Biological Station! And there are all kinds of people at the computer work stations using their laptops. One person is NOT playing a game! He's drawing (Oh save us from the terraists!) a graph!!! And oh yes, Mr. Chief Mate, you know that chart of the various ferry routes that you have up in the passenger area? Well, brace yourself. I actually saw somebody looking at it! And there are a bunch of people on the upper deck speaking a foreign language using binoculars!! (They were watching a pair of terraist eagles).

And you know the announcement telling people to familiarize themselves with the location of lifesaving equipment? Well, I actually saw two people who adhered to that request and were studying the Lifesaving Equipment Plan. We all know what they're up to, don't we? Un huh! They're planning their escape after they blow us all up.

Unfortunately I can't give you a link to this particular brochure since there is nary a word of it anywhere on BC Ferries website. I can tell you where to get one though: Any BC Ferry or BC Ferries terminal.

If you think it stops there, wait until you read the second part of this later today.

Human error

This is what most professional seamen have been expecting.

The BC Ferries report on the sinking of the Queen of the North blames human error for the accident, which claimed two lives when the ferry went down along B.C.'s North Coast in March 2006.

The report singles out three crew members in charge of navigation and steering on the night of the sinking, saying they failed to make a required course change at Sainty Point.

The ferry then proceeded straight on an incorrect course for four nautical miles over 14 minutes until it ran into the rocks of Gil Island.

What is not reported in the CBC report, except minimally, is the lack of cooperation provided by the second and fourth officers. The BC Ferries and Marine Workers Union supported the two in remaining silent and refusing to give evidence to the investigation.

While they reportedly cooperated with the Transportation Safety Board inquiry, they refused to answer questions or provide the employer with details surrounding the event. That's all well and good, but now both of them, and BC Ferries will be on the hook for some very serious civil lawsuits.

BC Ferries will now engage in a fact finding inquiry to determine what was actually taking place on the bridge.