by Kyle Wells [email protected] BC Ferries’ vessel the Queen of Chilliwack fought bad weather, long loading times and vehicle overloads as it started a three-month stint on the Powell River to Comox route beginning Monday, September 26.
Strong winds, rough seas and generally stormy weather forced cancellation of three of the Chilliwack’s roundtrip sailings on its first day. For the rest of the week all sailings went ahead as scheduled but the vessel left late for many sailings, running 48 minutes and 65 minutes behind schedule at times. Overloads also plagued the first week, due in part to the diminished capacity of the vessel and to the demand created by the missed sailings on the Monday.
BC Ferries spokesperson Deborah Marshall and terminal manager for the northern Sunshine Coast Sarah Dunbar both said that long loading times can be attributed to crews getting used to the loading procedure for the Chilliwack, which differs greatly from the usual vessel, Queen of Burnaby.
Dunbar described loading the Chilliwack as being “like a puzzle” and that crews have to be strategic in how they load the over-height and over-length vehicles, resulting in increased loading times. Crews also have to be sure to place specific vehicles with passengers requiring the elevator in a certain section of the car deck, which also slows down loading.
“So it’s not just first come, first load,” said Dunbar. “If it was that way we certainly wouldn’t be able to fit as many vehicles and commercial vehicles and under-height vehicles as we want to.”
Marshall said that after each sailing crew, and particularly loading officers, are holding debriefing meetings to decide what went right and what needs to change.
“Everybody’s working together to try to improve the situation,” said Marshall. “We know how important on-time performance is for the customers so we’re certainly working toward that.”
By the weekend the performance of the ship had increased significantly, according to Marshall. From Thursday, September 29 until the end of Sunday, October 2, the vessel left on time for 80 per cent of its runs, with only six of 31 sailings leaving more then 10 minutes late. Overloads were also down, with only one over-height vehicle left behind on Friday.
Rumours that Powell River RCMP were called to the Westview terminal over customers becoming angry and abusive toward ferry employees proved to be incorrect. These rumours made it all the way to BC Ferries head office and initially Marshall told the Peak that the incidents had occurred. Marshall later confirmed that there had been a miscommunication and that she had been mistaken in saying the RCMP had been called.
In preparation for increased traffic over Thanksgiving and Remembrance Day long weekends, BC Ferries had the North Island Princess, which normally services Texada Island, do one run from Powell River to Comox and back starting at 1 pm on Friday, September 30. The sailing took two hours but went well, according to Marshall. The North Island Princess will sail from Powell River at 12:50 pm and Comox at 3:05 pm on Monday, October 10, Thursday, November 10 and Sunday, November 13.
Some Texada Island residents were upset over a lack of notification that the North Island Princess would be servicing the Comox to Powell River route and that the Tachek would be filling in on the Texada Island route. Texada Action Now president Chuck Childress predicted that every sailing of the North Island Princess to Comox won’t be full and the move will generate overloads on the late afternoon sailings on and off Texada Island.
“You can’t run a business and do it on a knee-jerk, daily basis,” said Childress. “There should have been a plan, well thought out ahead of time, to deal with the traffic situation on the Comox-Powell River run.”
A technical issue aboard the Queen of Chilliwack resulted in the cancellation of the 5 pm sailing of the North Island Princess from Texada Island to Powell River on Friday, September 30. A 20-minute delay to fix an issue with the upper car deck ramp meant that the North Island Princess could not dock on time and resulted in the cancelled sailing from Texada.
The Chilliwack will be servicing the Powell River to Comox route until mid-December.
