Century Class Ferry

The Century class ferry is a ferry class designed by McLaren and Sons naval architects intended to service the busier Gulf Island routes in British Columbia operated by BC Ferries. The name for the class of ferry comes from the capacity which is approximately 100 cars. The ship was built by Allied Shipbuilders Ltd. in North Vancouver. The Century class ferry was intended to be a spartan, utilitarian ferry.

The only ferry of this class built to date is the Skeena Queen (built 1997). This ferry is named after the Skeena River. It runs solely on the Swartz Bay-Saltspring Island (at Fulford Harbour) route (except for a brief four-day trial on the Horseshoe Bay to Bowen Island run from April 23 to April 26, 1998). In 1994 the 10 year plan of BC Ferries called for construction of 3 Century class ferries.

There is some speculation as to why the other two vessels in the class were not built. The obvious reason is that the high speed ferry program consumed all available funds. Others point to the problems with the four Owner selected main propulsion engines that plagued the Skeena Queen following commission, including excessively high noise levels and cylinder counterbore cracking in the high-speed engines. On April 15, 2002 Skeena Queen was removed from service and its four high-speed Mitsubishi S12R diesel engines were replaced with four Mitsubishi medium-speed engines, model S6U. The new engines were provided by Mitsubishi at a never disclosed price.

The Century class design has the following characteristics:

• Overall length: 110.0 m
• Gross tonnage: 2,453
• Vehicle capacity: 100 spaces 17.5 feet long by 8.5 feet wide
• Passenger & crew capacity: 600
• Service Speed: 14.5 knots (23 km/h) at 3500 bhp
• Installed Power: 5,040 hp (3.8 MW)

The Century class ferries have very little cabin space. This is because they are intended to be used on short commuter runs of less than a half hour duration where most of the passengers stay in their vehicles, however, Skeena Queen operates solely on the route between Swartz Bay and Fulford Harbour, which is a 20 minute crossing.