A faulty alternator was the root of a generator power outage on the Horseshoe Bay-Langdale ferry route Friday evening – an outage that exacerbated delays on the busy Easter long weekend.
The outage of one of the Queen of Cowichan's three generators during the 5:30 p.m. sailing from Horseshoe Bay to Langdale lasted 10 seconds, until the emergency generator kicked in, according to BC Ferries spokesperson Jeff Groot.
In line with safety protocols, passengers were advised of the outage and the ship held outside of the Langdale terminal for about 20 minutes while on-board engineers determined the cause, after which point the ship was able to dock and traffic unload safely, said Groot.
"As is normal protocol, we had an electrical technician examine the generator to confirm everything was working fine, and we were then able to continue moving passengers from Horseshoe Bay around 9 p.m.," said Groot.
Rumours circulated on social media that there had been a fire on board the ship – there was no fire at any point, confirmed Groot.
