3308 replies to this topic

[VicHockeyFan]

^ In some weather, without the dolphin, the bigger ships can't risk docking.

[renthefinn]

I suspect it's referred to as a dolphin, cause of dolphin pile foundations, which are intended to take lateral loading, implying during bad weather or extreme events, it's likely the ends of the ships require additional lateral support to prevent them from moving. even if it's just the bow sticking out, the entire ship area is affected by wind loading.

[aastra]

I'd love to know what ship that was because i've never seen, read or heard of a 1000 footer tieing up here and since I follow this stuff I strongly suspect that is just more journalistic incompetence.

A few moments of Googling suggests the ship in question was "Mariner of the Seas". Royal Caribbean lists it at 1,020 feet.

Picture:
http://www.shipspott....php?lid=893657

The Carnival Cruise Lines ship CARNIVAL SPLENDOR (IMO 9333163) and the Royal Caribbean International ship MARINER OF THE SEAS (IMO 9227510) alongside at Ogden Point in Victoria. Due to the flu outbreak in Mexico, both companies have redirected their Mexican cruises. Normally, ships this size would never visit Victoria. Both are larger than any ship to have ever visited Victoria before. CARNIVAL SPLENDOR arrived first, breaking the old record as the largest ship to visit Victoria. She held this honour for about 30 minutes, before MARINER OF THE SEAS arrived and took the record. CARNIVAL SPLENDOR will visit 8 times, and MARINER OF THE SEAS will visit 13 times.

Ogden Point, Victoria
May 6, 2009

[aastra]

If you want actual journalistic incompetence about the cruise ship scene in Victoria, check this out:
http://www.vibrantvi...2083#post132083

[Phil McAvity]

^Yeah, not only does Andrew McLeod make a factual error in the Tyee about cruise ships but then the title of the T-C article was, "Cruse ships...."

A few moments of Googling suggests the ship in question was "Mariner of the Seas". Royal Caribbean lists it at 1,020 feet.

Picture:
http://www.shipspott....php?lid=893657

Ahhhh that explains it, so it was the swine flu outbreak in Mexico that diverted the ship here which also explains why the ship was never listed in the cruise ship schedule last year.

Luckily I didn't e-mail the writer and chastise them which I have been known to do.

Getting back to something Holden said:

The "Love Boat" Princess ships of our youth seem like little shrimps compared to those monsters.

They don't just seem like little shrimps, they are little shrimps. To illustrate that point I went on a cruise as a kid on the love boat in the seventies and today "Oasis of the Seas" is more than eleven times the displacement of that ship and about four times the displacement of the entire Princess Cruises fleet at the time.

[AllseeingEye]

Interesting though that the cruise industry has such a diverse a range in the size of ships, dependent largely on the target market. As Phil says the OOTS is enormous, geared of course to serving the Caribbean region.

The future Mrs ASE and I are in the process of booking our honeymoon cruise (likely) on Holland America or possibly Celebrity Cruises, both of which primarily utilize ships in 60-85,000 ton range. This is for a San Francisco to Alaska cruise. On the vacation we even considered Oceania Lines, a boutique line that is decidedly very upscale, but offers "only" 30-40,000 ton boats due to limited passenger capacity (600) thereby ensuring superior service. Coversely of course they also offer fewer shipboard amenities in comparison to the 80,000+ boats.

[Holden West]

I've always been intrigued by this form of cruising:

http://www.freightercruises.com/

“As for wardrobe, take one 'very nice outfit' to wear ashore and put it in your closet immediately. Then wear all your oldest clothes. We quickly found out that we were on a working ship where the men are constantly washing, scraping, painting, and greasing cables. Unless we were willing to remain in our air-conditioned cabin, we had to cope with all this activity including smudges of whatever was being used on the ship, as well as occasional soot deposits from the smoke stack. We wore boat shoes constantly since the decks are frequently wet and slippery, darker color T-shirts and cotton pants for most of the trip, and were able to donate a bundle of cleaning rags to the oilers in the engine room when we departed. That left us plenty of luggage room for the great souvenirs we picked up all over the world.

[Ms. B. Havin]

^ A friend of mine did this some decades ago, from (then-)Yugoslavia to the US. She had a blast.

[Mike K.]

...

Bad weather cancels cruise ship visits to Victoria
By Mike Kozakowski, VibrantVictoria.ca
http://vibrantvictor...ts-to-victoria/

Poor weather conditions kept nearly 3,500 cruise ship passengers from disembarking in Victoria on Thursday evening.

The 777 foot Zaandam and the 965 foot Celebrity Infinity, en-route from Ketchikan, Alaska and Skagway, Alaska, respectively, stopped within arms reach of Victoria’s Ogden Point cruise ship facility to determine a course of action as 35-knot winds swept over James Bay. The Master of the Ship of each vessel, with the advice of a local pilot, ultimately decided that a call to port would be too risky and the sailings continued on to Seattle. [...]

[Rob Randall]

Last Call!

Urban Development Institute Victoria Luncheon

Join Us Wednesday, September 15th, 2010 for

The Ogden Point Master Plan

Sponsored By
Merrick Architecture

Land use in a marine environment sounds like an oxymoron but it’s an enormous responsibility and the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority is working its way through the many levels of consultation and consideration needed to create a living, working plan. They’ve heard Ogden Point needs to be beautified. Some say make it a cultural centre or a marine education centre; others say it must stay visually accessible even while it mitigates noise and pollution from cruise ships and tour buses. Add shops and restaurants, don’t add shops and restaurants, enhance the marine zone but be sure the public is welcome. Sorting out the needs and wants for the area is a complicated task. Join us to hear Acting CEO, Sonterra Ross, talk about the land use issues and opportunities.

Join Us For This Important Presentation

$30 Members $50 Non-members

Fax your registration to 250-656-0292.

(Do not send financial information by email.)

Wednesday, September 15th, 2010 Noon-1:30pm

Embassy Inn, 520 Menzies Street, Victoria

[JohnN]

James Bay cruise-ship concerns being heard

Carla Wilson,
Timescolonist.com
April 13, 2011

A new air-monitoring system is being installed in James Bay to track levels of pollutants shown to increase when cruise ships are at Ogden Point.

The Greater Victoria Harbour Authority is also seeking neighbourhood-friendly ways to move hundreds of thousands of cruise ship passengers from Ogden Point to downtown to mitigate impacts on the community. One idea is to partner with First Nations to move passengers by shuttle on the water.

"We are just gathering information at this point to look at solutions in the future," Sonterra Ross, acting CEO for the authority, said Wednesday. "We don't have enough information to make changes or to make recommendations that are in the best interests of the harbour users and to the community."

Read more:
http://www.timescolo...1646/story.html

[Baro]

A harbour ferry from the cruise ship terminal to downtown isn't a bad idea. Would love to see a tram running from the port, to downtown, to uvic, coupled with a redevelopment of the docks area to something like Canada place. Then densify the corridor of james bay that the tram goes through with row-houses and small funky apartments and shops. One can dream...

[jklymak]

A harbour ferry from the cruise ship terminal to downtown isn't a bad idea. Would love to see a tram running from the port, to downtown, to uvic, ...

Yes, that would be great, but maybe less ambitiously, have the port tram go across the JSB to Vic West and back.

[Bingo]

How do the consultants know if the cruise ship environmental and social costs are outstripping the economic benefits to the city? That area once had a ship building industry, grain elevators and lumber exports. So when that was gone the area was built up and now the residents complain when the cruise ships run their generators, or the busses come and go.

With 210 cruise ship visits expected to inject 150 million into the local economy this season, Victoria needs to continue to welcome this industry, otherwise cruise lines don't seem to hesitate to move their business elsewhere.

The path from Ogden Point into the city is pretty straight forward. It's not like they need to worry about bridge closures.

see TC story
http://www.timescolo...7841/story.html

[Bernard]

I dream of Ogden Point going back to serious industrial use, we are short of land for that use

[JohnN]

Environmental, social costs of cruise ship industry outweigh benefits, study for port neighbours says

CARLA WILSON,
Timescolonist.com
April 14, 2011

The environmental and social costs of the cruise ship industry to Victoria are outstripping its economic benefits by at least $4 million, says a new study released Thursday.

Annual economic benefits reach $24 million at most, while costs are $28 million at the minimum and could go up $33 million, said the study by Brian Scarfe of BriMar Consultants Ltd.

"We have been far too long gulled by assertions of numbers that simply do not add up. Benefits are often grossly overstated and [there is] seldom any consideration of the costs," Scarfe, a James Bay resident, said in an interview.

"What we are hoping to do is get a more realistic view in the community on what cruise tourism does and doesn't do."

The 73-page report, Victoria as a Port of Call: The Costs and Benefits of Cruise Ship visits, was presented Thursday afternoon to the City of Victoria's environment and infrastructure committee.

Scarfe prepared the study for the James Bay Neighborhood Association at no cost. A sessional lecturer at UVic's economics department, Scarfe teaches cost-benefit analysis, resource economics and international economics. He was in the economics departments at the universities of Manitoba, Regina and Alberta.

Read more: seldom any consideration of the costs," Scarfe, a James Bay resident, said in an interview. "What we are hoping to do is get a more realistic view in the community on what cruise tourism does and doesn't do." The 73-page report, Victoria as a Port of Call: The Costs and Benefits of Cruise Ship visits, was presented Thursday afternoon to the City of Victoria's environment and infrastructure committee. Scarfe prepared the study for the James Bay Neighborhood Association at no cost. A sessional lecturer at UVic's economics department, Scarfe teaches cost-benefit analysis, resource economics and international economics. He was in the economics departments at the universities of Manitoba, Regina and Alberta.

Read Scarfe's report at https://docs.google....opsis_april.pdf

Read more:
[URL="http://www.timescolonist.com/Environmental+social+costs+cruise+ship+industry+outweigh+benefits+study/4617841/story.html"]http://www.timescolonist.com/Environmental+social+costs+cruise+ship+industry+outweigh+benefits+study/4617841/story.html

[sebberry]

I really don't want to read the report, but I'm guessing one of two things has happened.

1) Dr. Scarfe's Viagra and heart medications have been interacting

or more likely:
2) The JBNA ordered the report to come to that conclusion no matter the cost.

[aastra]

While economic benefits are generated by cruise line, passenger, and crew member expenditures, social and environmental costs result from marine effluents, traffic congestion, traffic noise, road repairs, atmospheric emissions, and public subsidies. Estimated economic benefits amount to at most $24 M, while estimated costs are at least $28 M.

Methinks they're probably starting with the premise that Ogden Point should be empty all the time, with no traffic coming or going and no activity occurring on-site. But I'll continue reading beyond the second paragraph before I come to any conclusions about that.

Edit: from page 10:

James Bay residents have identified quantity/volume of traffic to be the highest transportation priority with 81% identifying worsening conditions over the past 5 years. Large highway buses shuttling 300,000 people to and from Ogden Point create substantially more wear and tear on roadways than resident vehicles.

Something tells me an industrial use wouldn't make anyone any happier.

So are they arguing for residential development at Ogden Point? Resident vehicles create substantially less wear and tear than buses and trucks.

[aastra]

Not sure what to make of this from page 8:

In 2009, the James Bay Neighbourhood Association conducted a resident survey, obtaining responses from 573 residents (generating an accuracy level within +/- 4%, 19 times out of 20). Out of twenty-eight (28) possible items spanning the areas of community safety, traffic and transportation, access to community amenities, and quality of private development,
residents answered that the top three priorities requiring attention were:

1. Quantity/volume of traffic,
2. Traffic noise, and
3. Traffic pollution/emissions.

Furthermore, out of eleven (11) possible items within the traffic and transportation category, the top five priorities requiring attention were:

1. Quantity/volume of tourist buses,
2. Tourist bus noise,
3. Motorcycles,
4. Cruise ship emissions, and
5. Float plane noise.

[aastra]

From pages 8-9:

A 2009 James Bay Acoustics Study has proven that noise associated with cruise tourism activities, including transportation of passengers, results in “roughly a doubling of all transportation noises over the day.” Residential areas near the primary focus of cruise tourism, Ogden Point, are impacted by community noise levels at, or greater than, the highest levels of acceptable community noise.

The 3.2 dBA increase in Leq(24) noise level, if consistently maintained, causes a decrease in property values. A three per cent loss in property values is used. Assuming that 1000 residences in James Bay and elsewhere, with an average property value of $700K, are seriously impacted by transportation noise, particularly from large highway buses that are used to transport cruise ship passengers on a variety of tours, then the total loss of property value would be $21M, or an annual equivalent of $2.1M.

Health care costs associated with higher levels of community noise are also studied. The fact that traffic noise is the second highest source of community frustration, and leads to stress, hypertension, and the possibility of strokes, suggests that the health costs of traffic noise could easily amount to $3 M per year.

So even though Shoal Point is the most expensive development in Victoria, it would actually be even more expensive if not for the unbearable racket.