expected to return to service<\/a> Easter Sunday, it was quickly shelved again due to further mechanical issues.<\/p>\nSailings for the Queen of Surrey were cancelled on April 2-3, as it was determined the vessel required additional work after regularly scheduled refitting, but an estimated return did not go as planned, Akriti Tyagi, B.C. Ferries spokesperson, told the News Bulletin in an e-mail.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Queen of Surrey re-entered service on Sunday, April 5 \u2026 Early that morning, however, crews identified a mechanical issue with the vessel\u2019s steering panel, and it was taken out of service,\u201d Tyagi said. \u201cOur engineering teams are working to address the issue as quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is not known when the vessel will begin transporting passengers again, but Tyagi said B.C. Ferries prioritizes passenger safety and \u201cthe vessel will not return to service until [it is] confident it is safe to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n
B.C. Ferries had plans to help mitigate such situations, but they did not come to fruition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is exactly why we applied to the B.C. Ferry commissioner to build a fifth new major vessel, which could provide additional relief in moments like this,\u201d Tyagi said in the e-mail. \u201cThat proposal wasn\u2019t approved, and decisions on fleet expansion aren\u2019t within our control, but we\u2019ll continue to advocate for it. Without that extra vessel, our ability to absorb disruptions like this is limited.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an April 9 statement, the B.C. Ferry Commission said if approval had been granted, the ferry would not have been in service until 2031 and would not have alleviated the weekend\u2019s sailing problems.<\/p>\n
Further, it said it did not approve another vessel as it was not supportable due to B.C. Ferries\u2019 current financial situation.<\/p>\n
At an April 2 press conference, Stephen Jones, B.C. Ferries vice-president of engineering, detailed the issues that led to the April 2-3 cancellations.<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of that work was to replace the propulsion control systems on that vessel, as well as the steering control systems,\u201d Jones told the News Bulletin. \u201cNow in commissioning, issues have been found with a couple of the items on the steering system, which are being run to ground \u2026 we did all we could to mitigate potential issues, to prioritize the work and drive the work through.\u201d<\/p>\n
While service was disrupted April 5, regular Duke Point-Tsawwassen service has since returned.<\/p>\n
Tyagi said B.C. Ferries appreciates customers\u2019 patience, as it works to resolve the issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Duke Point-Tsawwassen ferry remains shelved due to mechanical issues Published 1:54 pm Thursday, April 9, 2026 Update: Story…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-593778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593778","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=593778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}