same vessel experienced the same issue, prompting the ferry operator to cancel sailings.<\/a><\/p>\nThe service notice was extended until March 30, just a day before the starboard generator failed work a second time this month.<\/p>\n
As a result, the service needed to be adjusted, with six sailings being cancelled \u2013 three departing Swartz Bay and three departing Tsawwassen \u2013 and four sailings being added to the schedule.<\/p>\n
The cancelled sailings:<\/p>\n
Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen: 11 a.m., 3 p.m., 7 p.m.<\/p>\n
Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay:\u00a01 p.m., 5 p.m., 9 p.m.<\/p>\n
The added sailings:<\/p>\n
Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen: 6 p.m., 8 p.m.<\/p>\n
Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay:\u00a04 p.m., 10 p.m.<\/p>\n
\u201cCustomers that are impacted by the cancellations are being contacted directly with rebooking options or refunds, and there are other routes to the island,\u201d Matthew said.<\/p>\n
She says that there is no exact timeline for when the vessel can be expected to return to service.<\/p>\n
With the Easter weekend ahead, she assures that BC Ferries remains focused on getting passengers from A to B.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are working to keep customers moving as efficiently as possible. And this is exactly the kind of situation where an additional relief vessel would really help.\u201d<\/p>\n
BC Ferries wanted to get five new vessels but commissioner only approved four<\/p>\n
However, that relief will not come as B.C. Ferries Commissioner Eva Hage only approved four vessels instead of the requested five.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year we did put forward a business case identifying the need for a fifth new vessel to provide real backup capacity that wasn\u2019t approved,\u201d Matthew said.<\/p>\n
Decisions on fleet expansion are not within our control, but we will continue to advocate for it. Without that extra vessel, there\u2019s really limited ability to absorb disruptions like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
That business case was submitted by B.C. Ferries in February last year, arguing that a fifth ferry would have increased capacity by up to 40 per cent.<\/p>\n
However, in March 2025, the commissioner says that the province could not afford a fifth vessel.<\/p>\n
The four ferries will be built by a Chinese state-owned shipyard, a procurement\u00a0deal that created a storm of backlash when announced in June 2025.<\/a><\/p>\nThe first of the diesel-battery hybrid vessels is scheduled for delivery in 2029.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mechanical issue on one of BC Ferries\u2019 vessels has caused several sailings between Swartz Bay in Victoria…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,55],"class_list":["post-574062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}