BC Ferries Coastal Celebration docked for routine maintenance while at the Esquimalt Graving Dock in Esquimalt, B.C., on March 14.Chad Hipolito/The Globe and Mail
The MV Coastal Celebration looms at a dock in Esquimalt, B.C., one of two shipyards in the province big enough for repairs to a vessel the size of this BC Ferries flagship.
Welders have cut large holes out of the steel car deck to access the ferry’s 13-tonne motors so they could be winched out for replacement, as they’ve prematurely reached the end of their lifespan.
Next to the Coastal Celebration another ferry, the Spirit of Vancouver Island, is tied up for routine maintenance.
With two of its most reliable large ships docked for repairs at the same time, BC Ferries is relying on vessels so old they are at risk of irreparable failure.
The publicly owned service is one of the largest and most complex ferry systems in the world. Its 37 vessels travel 25 routes along 1,600 kilometres of coastline. Ridership is growing, and the service expects to move a record number of passengers – 5.9 million – this July and August, peak time for summer tourism on Vancouver Island.
But decades of underfunding has left BC Ferries with a fleet that is barely able to meet peak demand when everything is running smoothly. Only five of its 11 major vessels have not aged beyond the point at which they should have been retired. Residents of ferry-dependent communities are used to reservations selling out quickly and long queues for sailings.
BC Ferries 1st engineer Craig Robson works with his co-worker to clean a MaK diesel engine on the Coastal Celebration.Chad Hipolito/The Globe and Mail
Most of the system’s funding comes from rider fares, which just increased 3.25 per cent last week, and 20 per cent from the provincial government. Over its 64-year history, BC Ferries has faced political unwillingness to raise fares, cut routes or pour millions more into the service, while making choices to pacify the demands and complaints of those who live in coastal communities and rely on the service to get to work, school, medical appointments and to receive shipments of food.
Operating costs are soaring and major capital investments are needed, but BC Ferries’ regulator has capped annual fare increases at 3.2 per cent for the next four years. There are hard choices ahead for this vital part of the province’s transportation network.
“I wish it weren’t true, but the costs of running the system are going up. And they are probably going up faster than the willingness and the tolerance of people to pay,” said Nicolas Jimenez, BC Ferries president and chief executive officer.
Since taking up the post in March, 2023, Mr. Jimenez has launched a hiring spree to deal with a chronic labour shortage, which has helped reduce cancellations because of insufficient crews. But tackling the problem of the aging fleet will require more capital than he has at his disposal.
Some argue the provincial government should contribute more. “It’s a conversation we need to have with the province,” he said. “It is an essential public service with two primary sources of funding. It’s a discussion that everybody needs to be a part of.”
At 15 years old, the Coastal Celebration is the youngest of the fleet’s large ships. Like the other two Coastal class ferries – christened with the similarly lofty names Renaissance and Inspiration – it was welcomed with fanfare when it launched. Though serviceable and without frills, the vessels were a signal of a new era for BC Ferries, after an earlier experiment with locally built aluminum-hulled fast catamarans was mothballed just months into service.
A BC Ferries welder performs routine maintenance aboard the Coastal Celebration.Chad Hipolito/The Globe and Mail
The typical lifespan for a large ferry ship operating in the relatively sheltered waters of BC Ferries’ main routes should be 25 to 40 years. Although the trio of Coastal ships is well within that time frame, they now require costly retrofits that have led to the Coastal Celebration being docked since March. Replacing the motor rotors – each of the Coastal ships has two – costs $1.5-million a motor, but this is just a fraction of the cost of fixing the underlying problem.
The repairs are the consequences of a decision made by BC Ferries, less than a week into the Coastal ships’ service between Vancouver Island and the mainland, to shut off the motors every time the vessels dock. The noise and vibration from the vessels at slow speeds is so strong, residents living near the terminals knew the ferries were approaching the berth by the rattling of their window panes. But the frequent shutdowns resulted in premature wear of the rotors.
On the older end of the fleet, six of the ferries serving major routes are decades past their retirement dates. The oldest, the Queen of New Westminster, will be 60 this year. “It’s not just that they’re old, it’s that we have no relief capacity in our peak season,” Mr. Jimenez said.
It’s a problem because things will, inevitably, go wrong. Running major vessels beyond their designated lifespan is an invitation for breakdowns, and when that happens, people and goods will be stranded. While private passengers make up the bulk of the ridership, with a small minority travelling for vacation, BC Ferries’ commercial customers are critical to maintaining supply chains that provide food and other vital goods to coastal communities.
The cost of building new ships has climbed in the past four years by 35 percentage points, but these capital investments have been deferred too long, said Mr. Jimenez.
Add to this the increasing costs of labour as BC Ferries offers better pay and working conditions after the pandemic triggered an exodus from the work force. The service hired 1,200 people last year, Mr. Jimenez said. An arbitration decision in late March provided a 7.75-per-cent general wage increase, with an additional up to 10 per cent for many positions.
“We want this service to be great. We want it to be affordable. We want it to be sustainable. We want our vessels not to be spewing out conventional, dirty marine oils and fuels,” Mr. Jimenez said. “Okay. What do we have to do to make all that true?”
BC Ferries engineers inside the engine control room aboard the Coastal Celebration.Chad Hipolito/The Globe and Mail
The Coastal Renaissance returned to service in late March, after five months in dock for its repairs. With the new motors, it can run the faster route through Active Pass once again, because the captain no longer has to fear a motor failure in the narrow and turbulent passage between Galiano and Mayne islands.
That will reduce delays, but the rotor retrofit on the Coastal class vessels is a short-term fix to ensure ferry service is reliable through the busy summer months. The ships remain just as noisy and the motors will still need to be shut off while in the terminal. A permanent solution is in the works for the fall, when the ships will be taken out of service again to have their propellers replaced and new variable speed drives connected. After 15 years, the ships will finally be equipped to run as intended.
BC Ferries’ most recent customer satisfaction survey shows unhappiness with delays has been growing, with the ranking the worst it has been in at least five years. Mr. Jimenez says recent changes are starting to pay off, however. Cancellations dropped in 2023 to 1.5 per cent of all sailings.
The ferries are a vital part of life on Quadra Island, off the east coast of Vancouver Island. Students from Grade 6 and up need to ride the ferry to get to school. Groceries and other goods are delivered only when the service is running. Even ambulances have to wait until the next sailing.
“It’s our marine highway,” said Quadra Island resident Jim Abram.
He says users are being offered only two options: Higher fares or reduced service. Mr. Abram would rather BC Ferries be treated as an extension of the public highway service, funded by taxpayers and not individual users. “It’s just as valid as any terrestrial highway. But it’s funded as a subsidized service.”
For residents of Haida Gwaii, a trip to the mainland typically requires planning weeks in advance. Sandspit resident Evan Putterill, chair for the North and Central Coast Ferry Advisory Committee, said the challenges have grown because BC Ferries has failed to get ahead of demand. And that, he says, is entirely the responsibility of the provincial government.
“There’s this myth out there that BC Ferries was privatized. And that’s nonsense, it’s 100-per-cent publicly owned,” he said. “To build more vessels, to increase capacity, to get rid of these super-long lineups that we have, the government needs to fund this public transportation system adequately.”