Messages

1

Shipping News and information / Re: Where will MV Caribou and MV Smallwood end up??

« on: March 11, 2011, 02:20:15 AM »

Ive was told that three months before she was retired ..but nope every one said it wasnt true..

Yep, tough love for sure.  An employee on the Smallwood, who started his career on the Caribou, filled us in on all the details during our 24 passenger crossing, lol.  Easy to see the lack of needed funds being put into these great ferries.  I remember roaming the Caribou back in 2006 seeing wall panels and stair support structures rusted completely away inside on lower decks.

2

Shipping News and information / Re: Where will MV Caribou and MV Smallwood end up??

« on: March 11, 2011, 12:08:40 AM »

They took the Caribou out of service too quick and started removing some things (making her no longer fit for service) and then ran into a shortage when the weather kept the Vision from being able to dock in Port Aux Basques. For a while around Christmas Smallwood was handling 100% of the runs!

The reason the Caribou was taken out of service when she was is that her safety certificates were up the day of her last crossing. In order to renew them there was a significant structural and safety retrofit needed, primarily a replacement of the airlock watertight car deck doors which the Smallwood had done on prior dry dockings.  I missed the final crossing of the Caribou by a few hours so we hit up the Smallwood instead, which was cool, because we stopped for close to an hour to lay a wreath for the HMCS Shawinigan.

http://www.navy.forces.gc.ca/cms/3/3-a_eng.asp?category=7&id=834