Now, I'm about to answer the question of the century (without trying to put down a certain class of vessel and sharing my personal experiences): Is the seabridger class junk? In fact it's the other way around. The Smallwood (pictured right) and Caribou used to be great ferries until their final years of life due to poor maintenance which Marine Atlantic could not afford to cover as reported in the Auditor General's report in 2009. With deferred maintenance, the two proud Canadian-built ferries were turned into junk towards the end as well as not having enough capacity, thus, leaving passengers, vehicles, tractor trailers and drop trailers behind. On my final trip on the Smallwood in 2010, I was literally ranting to myself walking back to the hotel at the way it was then with equipment breakdowns, backlog in the parking lot, botched bookings, etc..
The Blue Puttees and Highlanders (pictured left) can really clear the parking lot and can carry what's in the lanes at North Sydney and Port aux Basques. though they don't have the high Ice Classification and stability in rough seas during the winter months, the Seabridger class can make up for it in on-time reliability and capacity. And although the food is more expensive and a longer wait time in the main restaurant than on the Gulfspan class, the quality is much better than previous years. And there's more, there's a total of 96 cabins and a reserved seating area on the seabridger class while there was only 41 cabins and uncomfortable dormatory sleepers on the Gulfspan class. And even though MV Highlanders had an Air Conditioner problem on board while I was on her August 4, let me throw this scenario for everyone: Imagine a ferry with no air condition, miles out at sea and no engine to take you home? In her last years, the Smallwood was almost ready to do just that in my opinion. Now, there's more reliable, (and quite possibly) temporary replacements and their doing what they are supposed to do: clear traffic backlog.
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