British Columbia's New Cable Ferry Always On Its Moorings

This is not a regular ferry, this is not a regular ferry.

- Alan Haig-Brown

BC Ferries project manager Mark Nemeth repeated this mantra to himself in the early stages of building Baynes Sound Connector at Seaspan’s Vancouver Shipyards. As a cable vessel it isn’t unique, but at 258 feet it is one of the largest of its type. It also operates on the longest cable ferry run in the world.

Baynes Sound is a narrow channel between 12-mile-long Denman Island and the east coast of Vancouver Island. For years, a conventional ro-ro ferry served the run of about 1.2 miles. When it came time for a new ferry, officials noted that the channel is about 195 feet at its deepest point and generally has a sandy bottom, which would allow cables to lie on the sea floor without damaging the lines or the environment. While it is subject to strong winter southeast winds, the reach is not so long that wave heights become excessive.

Baynes Sound Connector was launched at the Vancouver Shipyards in 2015. Following finishing work alongside the shipyard, the boat was towed to the site where the cables already had been installed. It went into service early in 2016 after a period of testing and crew training.

Nemeth had taken early retirement as an engineering superintendent with the BC Ferry Corp., but he went back to work to join the vessel replacement team for construction of the boat. Of retirement he said, “We drove all over North America in our mobile home but when I came back home to BC, I needed something to do.”

He enjoys his new work and is particularly enthusiastic about Baynes Sound Connector. Somewhere between a barge and a boat, the ferry operates by pulling itself along a 6,233-foot-long cable that is 1.6 inches in diameter. Two guide cables of the same diameter are anchored in massive concrete piers and then pass through sheaves under the ferry’s sponsons. Top speed is 8.5 knots.