Ferry Crash Number Four….The Door Has It.

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It turns out that, in addition to the dock, the latest BC Ferries crash at Duke point also damaged one of the ship’s doors.

And recall, if you will, that this is one of those new gas guzzlers from Germany.

Which means that you can’t order up a part from the lot, or even from the dealer down the street.

Instead, you’ve got to make the very expensive call across the ocean.

Chris Montgomery has the story:

…The ferry itself took damage to the portside door, which means having a replacement part made and flown in from Germany…

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…It’s really odd that the company finds itself in the position of having to have door parts made abroad.

Crew tell me the new ferries “cost us a lot” in parts and maintenance. They say the deal made for the vessels with the German yard was kind of like buying a Porsche, where you can’t go out later and buy parts of your choice. You have to get them flown in, at whatever price the seller chooses, and you can’t make them yourself, because you haven’t negotiated any patents. So for some other ships in the fleet, engineers can machine new parts. On the Coastals, the bow doors are a different design that lifts the door and then slides it on a roller. When it works, it’s really slick. But when it gets hit, the damage is huge. It’s a heavy door but a fairly light track system, and that and the cylinders that lift the door are what gets ruined when the door gets whacked, the engineers say. That’s when you get stuck with a month-long wait and a big bill for parts.

And that’s where you find yourself when you go for the kind of contract Ferries signed for the German newbuilds. Great on the front end: good price, lots to brag about, on time and on budget. The bills come in later….

Of course there is also the minor matter of the alleged Hochsteining of the local shipbuilding industry that may or may not (but I reckon it probably did) have had something to do with the awarding of those contracts offshore in the first place.

But hey, we’ve been through all that before.

Right?

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I’m telling you, if you are not reading Ms. Montgomery’s stuff regularly on all matters Maritime, you are really missing out. Case in point, yesterday she also questioned the official party line that there is nothing to see here/no need for a publicly scrutinizable investigation because this kind of stuff is bound to happen once in awhile…..Or some such codswallop.

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By RossK