BC Ferries cancels sailings, adds others in Easter ship crunch

Two ships down at BC Ferries could cause delays for those hoping to hop on or off the Island this Easter long weekend.

The Spirit of Vancouver Island, which ferries folks between Swartz Bay and Tsawwassen, is out of service because of an issue with its starboard generator. That’s forced the company to revise the route’s schedule.

BC Ferries also had to cancel a half-dozen sailings between Tsawwassen and Duke Point because the Queen of Surrey’s scheduled refit is taking longer than expected.

“We knew it was a tight window," said Stephen Jones, the company's vice-president of engineering. "But the reality is that it's the only one we had."

In an attempt to ease the stress of yesterday’s and today’s cancellations, BC Ferries is adding a pair of sailings tomorrow and Sunday. The company said it would contact reservation holders whose sailings were cancelled to either rebook or refund them.

“We know this is not the level of service people expect from us,” said BC Ferries president Nicolas Jimenez.

“It may not feel like it,” he said. But “these kinds of significant impacts are rare.”

“We operate our vessels at over 99% reliability, but we also know that on days like this, that’s not what it feels like.”

Jimenez blamed a “combination of factors” for the operational issues.

“Aging vessels, unexpected breakdowns, a tightly scheduled refit schedule, and not having enough vessels in the fleet,” he said.

BC Ferries has four new ships on order, but the first won't be ready until at least 2029. The company wanted five, but its regulator, the BC Ferry Commission, said no.

A “missed opportunity,” Jimenez called it.

"The system is crying out for additional capacity," Jimenez told CTV last March.

"Building four vessels is great, but it doesn't solve the capacity problems that we have today and into the future.”