A Queen of Burnaby breakdown earlier this year was not caused by ropes or cables wrapped around the ship’s propellers, contrary to rumours circulating in the community.
Captain Al de Koninck, BC Ferries’ marine superintendent, north islands, provided an overview of the vessel’s mechanical problems during a recent meeting of the Northern Sunshine Coast Ferry Advisory Committee.
BC Ferries pulled the Queen of Burnaby, the regular vessel on the Powell River-Comox route, from service for 15 days in February. De Koninck explained the vessel had gone in for a regularly scheduled refit in the fall of 2011, essentially to bring it back up to Transport Canada standards.
A significant portion of the $12-million refit cost was spent on steel replacement. The main requirements were to clean the hull, pull the shafts and put in holding tanks to meet new sewage regulations.
Pulling the shafts involves pulling the blades and hubs off, de Koninck explained. “If the hubs have to be inspected, as part of the regular schedule, you take the hubs apart and inspect them. This was not a requirement this time.” The port shaft had to be replaced, de Koninck said.
At one end of the shaft is the hub and at the other end is the oil distribution box, which actually distributes signals from the throttles to move the blades. “When they moved the handles, the blades actually couldn’t move because the oil wasn’t being distributed with the proper signal.”
Those boxes were not scheduled to be touched during the refit, de Koninck explained.
Tests were done after the shafts were replaced. “The blades are just in air,” de Koninck said. “There’s essentially no resistance. What we found out later when we ended up with the breakdown was that it took a bit of time for the components in the oil distribution box to actually start to go haywire.”
When the ship returned to dry dock for repairs, workers rebuilt the hubs and oil distribution boxes.
BC Ferries redeployed the North Island Princess, which carries about one quarter of the number of passengers and vehicles, from the Powell River-Texada Island route to the Powell River-Comox route. The Tachek and a water taxi provided service to Texada.
Service between Powell River and Comox was augmented by charter flights and supplemental sailings by the Tachek. BC Ferries provided 25 flights that carried a total of 511 passengers. While the flights cost passengers the price of a walk-on ticket, the cost to BC Ferries was $78,000.
