BC Ferries preparing to refit majority of aging vessels

Some much-needed repairs are coming to BC Ferries’ ships this fall, just days after one of their vessels was suddenly pulled for mechanical issues.

BC Ferries executive director of communications Jeff Groot says multiple of their vessels are reaching the end of their lifespans, which means breakdowns will become more common.

“Last year, we made a real effort to shrink that refit window to make sure we had all the ships back in service in time for the summer season. Our plan this year is right along those lines. We have standards to meet from Transport Canada to make sure that the vessels go through regular inspections, to make sure that they’re in top shape, and the recent season for us is also really important because we have a number of ships that are aging,” he explained.

“One [ship] just turned 60 this year. As you can imagine, with older ships like this, it becomes even more important that we take as good care of them as possible, so that we can avoid as much as possible breakdowns.”

The confirmation of the updates comes after one of the Queen of New Westminster’s propellers was sheared off, forcing the cancellation of all its sailings this month.

Groot explains that almost three-quarters of the fleet is set to see some kind of refit before summer 2025.

“There’s not one mechanical issue that becomes obvious when a ship reaches a certain age. … If you were driving a 60-year-old car, you probably would expect a number of things to go sideways, and you’d be looking to keep it in pretty good shape and make sure you’re doing those regular inspections so that you can reduce as much as possible those surprises,” Groot told 1130 NewsRadio.

Groot adds they are also looking at building newer and bigger ships while expanding the size of the fleet.

“In two months over the summer, we transported five million people and two million vehicles — these are huge numbers and huge demand of people that are looking to travel on the ferry,” Groot said.

“It just really emphasizes some of the work that we’re going to be doing going forward to make sure that we’ve got those newer, bigger ships so we can carry more people on the same schedule. And we’re looking to add that additional vessel, which is really critical to making sure that we’ve got resiliency in the fleet, but also that when things do go wrong, we’ll have a backup and we can support people and bring that ship on to keep them moving.”

BC Ferries says despite “operational hurdles” it is focusing on minimizing any impacts to their customers, and Groot explains they start these repairs in the fall in order to have as little impact as possible on their sailings.