Questions are being asked about the sale of the Queen of Chilliwack to a Fijian transport company after ferry service on the Sunshine Coast ground to a halt twice last week. Before its sale last year, the Chilliwack served as a fleet replacement vessel.
With North Island Princess breakdowns last week and no replacement vessel available, scheduled sailings between Saltery Bay and Earls Cove were cancelled for much of Thursday, January 7 and Saturday, January 9.
“When you have a fleet that’s left without a backup, you’ve got to question the management, not even what they sold it for, though that’s a really important question that needs to be answered,” said Powell River - Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons. “The question right now is why did they sell it and not keep it available for British Columbians who paid for it, to get a few more years out of it when we obviously need it?”
The Bowen Queen, the fleet’s only other backup, was unavailable as it is currently engaged in the southern gulf islands replacing the Queen of Cumberland, which is going through mid-life upgrades. North Island Princess, normally running between Westview and Texada Island, is being used to replace the Island Sky while that vessels stands in for the Queen of Burnaby, which is undergoing repairs until the end of January.
“They should never have sold the Queen of Chilliwack,” said Simons. “Why didn’t they keep it for another year and a half to wait for the replacement ships to be built? It just seems like bad planning. When you have a fleet that’s left without a backup, you’ve got to question the management.”
Minister of transportation and infrastructure Todd Stone has stated in correspondence that $15 million worth of retrofits were put into the Chilliwack from 2010 to 2013. The ship was retired when the government cancelled BC Ferries’ summer tourist route between Port Hardy and central coastal communities of Bella Coola, Ocean Falls and Klemtu. The scrapping of the route was said to be a cost-saving measure, despite the fact it made BC Ferries money.
“The Chilliwack was surplus to our assets, so we did sell it,” said BC Ferries spokesperson Deborah Marshall. The company does not want to prejudice the sale of two of its other ships by revealing the sale price, she said.
Goundar Shipping Limited (GSL), Fiji’s largest passenger and cargo inter-island ferry operator, bought the Queen of Prince Rupert and Queen of Chilliwack and is also said to be looking at the Queen of Nanaimo and Queen of Burnaby. GSL owner George Goundar, according to his biography on GSL’s website, worked as a marine engineer and held senior management positions at BC Ferries for 20 years before purchasing the Queen of Prince Rupert and returning to his homeland to operate the company.
The Chilliwack’s retrofit, which Goundar claimed in the Fiji Sun cost BC Ferries $28 million, bought the ship, originally built in 1978 in Norway, an extended life. Work included a new car deck, watertight doors, new propeller seals, a new instrument control system, sewage and holding systems, the installation of three new generators, electrical and HVAC system upgrades and a renewal of the propulsion control system.
Another Fiji newspaper, the Fiji Times, announced the vessel’s arrival in the Pacific island nation in September 2015 and stated that Goundar had bought the vessel for $2.5 million Fijian, or $1.6 million Canadian. Earlier reports of a sale price in the range of $150,000 to $500,000 including a full tank of fuel have been unfounded.
“When an important asset to British Columbians is sold to an offshore company we should have the right to know,” said Simons.
Marshall said the company does recognize the impact service interruptions have on residents with medical appointments in Vancouver.
“We’ve been trying to think of other ways of helping customers out. We did hear from some customers who were concerned about making their appointments,” she said.
Marshall said customers travelling with the provincial government’s Travel Assistance Program can call BC Ferries customer service and the company will inform terminal staff to give them assured loading for busier trips in the mornings.
“We definitely recognize the impact we’re having on customers and that’s why we’re trying to do things like accommodate the travel assistance folks so they can get to their appointments,” she said.
BC Ferries also provided free ferry travel between Saltery Bay and Earls Cove on January 10 and 11 after the interruptions in service.
UPDATE: BC Ferries stated in a media release dated Thursday, January 14, Queen of Chilliwack was sold to N&J Mechanical Distributors Ltd. of Vancouver, BC, who then sold it to Goundar Shipping of Fiji. A sale price was not included in the media release.
