Canadian ferry service has to bring fatal accident prone 61 year-old vessel back into service after 200 days out because a replacement order has not even been approved yet

61 year-old back in-service MV Queen of New Westminster with her trademark open bow doors

Professor John Robertson OBA, Pacific Archipelago Ferry Consultant

From Global News, last week:

After nearly 200 days out of service, one of BC Ferries’ key vessels is back on the water. The return of the Queen of New Westminster comes just in time for spring break.

BC Ferries pulled the vessel from service in September 2024, after its propeller detached due to structural fatigue. The company is looking to build five new major vessels and conduct refits to extend the lives of two others. The BC Ferries commissioner is expected to rule on the proposal at the end of the month.1

The MV Queen of New Westminster was launched in May 1964 and has been in operation for BC Ferries around Vancouver ever since – 61 years – with ever increasing breakdowns. On three occasions, she has berthing accidents; one where a car with passengers fell into the water, one where two passengers were injured when their van fell between decks and one, in 1992, when three were killed!2

Sources:

  1. https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/queen-of-new-westminster-back-in-service-after-nearly-200-day-outage/ar-AA1AWCPA?ocid=BingNewsVerp
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Queen_of_New_Westminster

Other reasons from Canda to be grateful for Scotland’s publicly-owned ferries:

Poisoned Waters: The War Between BC Ferries in Canada and its workers but in Scotland….
Canada buys two catamaran ferries from Romania which take another two years to make ready then quickly prove unsuitable for the conditions
Canadian ferries vibrating too much due to cost-saving in German yards
One of newest ferries breaks down again to cause chaos at Christmas in Canada already over-charged by corporations
Canadian ferries get blown into ‘rough political waters’ even while the seas are calm

2 thoughts on “Canadian ferry service has to bring fatal accident prone 61 year-old vessel back into service after 200 days out because a replacement order has not even been approved yet”

  1. Please don’t talk about what you don’t know I work for BC Ferries and have 3 generations of family who work there too and the incidents you have brought up with the Queen of New Westminster which is my favorite ship ever were all human caused not the ships fault the Propeller Incident was already well documented and known as we were running the Starboard Shaft at 70% power due to excessive vibration and the Engineers requested to have the ship drydocked and the company said no and to just push it until the summer ends or it breaks and the fatal accident with the cars during loading were both caused by miscommunication between the terminal staff and the Crew onboard and for 61 years old the Queen of New Westminster is one of the best and most reliable vessels we have and is in excellent condition especially considering her age and the operations and to use Scotland as a example is disrespectful and completely stupid our ships run far more and far longer and far harder than any of the little pisspots you have do and 99.9% of the time it’s not the ship that’s the problem it’s the people who are running it or in charge of it

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  2. Pingback: Where’s the real evidence that ‘islanders’ are really angry over ferries? – Talking-up Scotland

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