BC Ferries travellers react to lengthy waits with Coastal Renaissance docked for repairs

BC Ferries’ Coastal Renaissance vessel — which usually sails between Tsawwassen and Nanaimo’s Duke Point terminal — is out of service because of an issue with its motor, resulting in a few more obstacles for those looking to make their way across the Georgia Strait

The corporation is cancelling another round of sailings this weekend, leaving many travellers scrambling.

Many of the passengers CityNews spoke to on Friday were waiting for hours to get onto a sailing.

“My whole day is shot.”

“We are not even guaranteed to get on this ferry so it is very disappointing.”

“I was five minutes late for my reservation and they said it would be cancelled and I would have to wait four hours in the sun — I’m not too happy about having to wait.”

Read more:

• BC Ferries says broken down vessel could take weeks to fix

• BC Ferries vessel docked with an engine problem, multiple sailings cancelled

BC Ferries’ Chief Executive Officer Nicolas Jimenez says he doesn’t know when the ‘Coastal Renaissance’ will be running again, which leaves the potential for more sailings to be cancelled as the summer winds down.

“It is very complicated, I have stressed that to remove the engine we will need specialized equipment, this is not a simple repair,” he said.

“This is going to take a fair bit of time for us to understand the nature of the damage.”

FILE – The Coastal Renaissance vessel as part of of the BC Ferries fleet. (Chad Harris, CityNews Image)

Reservations for vehicles from Tsawwassen to Nanaimo for the rest of the weekend are sold out, and Jimenez urges travellers without reservations to reconsider making the trip if it isn’t totally necessary.

“If you don’t have a reservation, please don’t come,” he said. “If you must come, potentially look for other alternatives — walk-on, carpooling — that will certainly create a more successful experience for everyone.”

Jiminez says the summer season is extremely busy, and the corporation has increased services at terminals to include extra staff, and more.

“We added more water because we know people will be sitting in their cars — it is very warm in these concrete spaces that absorb a lot of heat,” he said.

“Hot very hot,” one traveller told CityNews while waiting through scorching temperatures in the ferry lineup.

“You can imagine the heat from today — and having children, and just waiting for a very long time — it’s infuriating,” said another.

Despite the disruption, BC Ferries says the public shouldn’t discredit the service entirely.

“They are generally pretty good — pretty reliable 99.7 per cent of the time,” Jiminez added.

“That doesn’t mean much to someone who has had their trip disrupted”