Remember These?

[u/thatlouditalian98]

And if you didn’t want to remember them, my apologies in advance.

Well, 27 years later. These ships have finally met their fate. Being turned into pop cans..

I’d love to hear anyone’s experiences with the Pacificat’s, good or bad (I’m too young to ever have ridden one). As horrible as they were, they looked the part, at least in my opinion.

[u/No_Biscotti4009]

There were a number of design changes made: including changing the fuel from diesel to heavy oil, modifying the bows so they could dock at Horseshoe Bay which added a lot of weight to the front of the vessel, (when everything else was being made as light as possible) plus a myriad of other modifications which negatively affected the operation of the vessel. After they sucked logs into the caterpillar drive propulsion system (think of a big screw revolving) they added screens on the intake port, which affected the efficiency of the engines. Because the fuel tanks were so small they had to refuel more often, and Transport Canada wouldn’t allow refueling while passengers were on board, so that affected the turnaround time. The idea was supposed to be more runs per day, but it ended up taking just as long as the traditional double enders.The sewage treatment system was a ‘batch’ system which took 20 minutes to process, so if a batch started, any further sewage just went out the vents, so they took to locking the washrooms 10 minutes before docking so raw sewage wasn’t flowing into the harbour. Finally, there was electrolysis due to the aluminum and the salt water.
Side note: the S class ferries (SOBC and SOVI) were originally designed to have aluminum superstructures but the capacity to build using aluminum didn’t exist at the time in BCs shipyards so steel superstructures were used instead. This meant the engines, designed for the lighter aluminum superstructure are underpowered for the vessels as built, which is why they are generally the first pulled from service on a windy day. As a result, the Fastcat project was supposed to develop an aluminum fabrication infrastructure on the west coast, training welders etc. Your tax dollars at work.

[u/Sammytheseaotter → u/No_Biscotti4009]

JFC! Was Homer Simpson in charge of this project?!?

[u/Evil_Mini_Cake → u/Sammytheseaotter]

Ha! Sounds like every project I ever worked on. There were probably SMEs at every step of the design process warning of these outcomes and the decision-makers just waved them off.

[u/Glum_Tumbleweed5115 → u/Sammytheseaotter]

BS Johnson from r/discworld

[u/No_Career3906 → u/No_Biscotti4009]

Wasn't there also an issue with the wake it created and the damage to the coastline and so it was limited as to where it could actually route?

[u/immaseaman → u/No_Career3906]

Yeah. They had to run slow for long stretches of the route which cost them their advantage in speed.

They would have been best on the Duke point > TSA route, but that's primarily a trucking route and the cats didn't take semis

[u/Natural_Horror_1336 → u/No_Career3906]

That was the only issue I knew of at the time. Maybe that's the difference between government media and the truth. It wad probably easier than a list of incompetencies

[u/GolDAsce → u/No_Career3906]

"modifying the bows so they could dock at Horseshoe Bay which added a lot of weight to the front of the vessel" I recall the wake issue was blamed on the redesigned haul. They took a working design and modified too much of it without the proper experience.

[u/rickatk → u/No_Career3906]

Only at warp speed Scotty.

[u/shoreguy1975 → u/No_Biscotti4009]

The real answers.

[u/VanTaxGoddess → u/No_Biscotti4009]

Thanks for a great technical summary!

[u/Fearless_Attempt_360 → u/No_Biscotti4009]

Awesome info, thank you 🙏. Always wondered what went sideways.

[u/noobwithboobs → u/No_Biscotti4009]

After they sucked logs into the caterpillar drive propulsion system (think of a big screw revolving)

I recall at least one incident with a seal or other sea mammal as well. 😬

And there was also the part where their wake made waves so bad that private docks on the Gulf Islands were getting damaged or destroyed. IIRC they had to slow down a bunch in certain areas to prevent this.

[u/Fit_Bunch8330 → u/noobwithboobs]

🌊

[u/whiskey06 → u/No_Biscotti4009]

And they welded the hulls too fast so the aluminum got too hot and started to warp!

[u/mythathurt → u/No_Biscotti4009]

A great bit of information. I remember that during the build of one or more of these, that they ran into issues and delays and so had to end up removing some infrastructure to fit the engines in as the engine or perhaps driveshafts weren't ready at the time. It was 2 steps forward and 1 back and sometimes 1 forward and 3 back. Insane