Posted on November 7, 2017
By Elliot Ferguson, thewhig.com
City council is to be asked to consider the wharf at 1 Queen St. as the site of a deepwater dock to accommodate cruise ships.
City staff are recommending that Crawford Wharf continue to be used to dock smaller cruise ships and that the city begin discussions with the owner of the 1 Queen St. wharf about its use as a deepwater dock.
Cruise ships are limited in where they can dock by water depth and mooring facilities.
Creating a deepwater dock would allow Kingston to attract larger cruise ships to a mooring in the downtown core, the report stated.
“Only cruise ships with small passenger capacity can currently be accommodated at Crawford Wharf,” the staff report stated. “The Great Lakes Cruise Company and the MS Hamburg are the largest cruise line/ships and none of these cruise ships can currently moor at the Crawford Wharf or in Kingston.”
Crawford Wharf can accommodate smaller cruise ships, and two cruise ships — Ontario Waterway Cruises’ Kawartha Voyageur and St. Lawrence Cruise Lines’ Canadian Empress — regularly dock there.
The 66-passenger Canadian Empress is scheduled to dock in Kingston 23 times next year.
But the MS Hamburg, a 420-passenger luxury cruise ship can’t dock anywhere along the waterfront and its passengers have to be shuttled to shore in smaller vessels. It is expected to stop twice in Kingston next year.
The Great Lakes Cruise Company ships Grand Caribe and Grand Mariner could also dock at the Crawford Wharf, but currently Kingston is not a port of call for them. Together, those ships are scheduled to pass Kingston eight times next year.
Great Lakes Cruise Company’s 202-passenger M/V Victory I is expected to pass Kingston eight times, and its identical sister ship, the M/V Victory II, is to enter service in May. The company’s 210-passenger Pearl Mist is expected to pass Kingston twice next year.
An engineering company hired by the city looked at the 1 Queen St. wharf, Crawford Wharf, the former marine museum wharf at 55 Ontario St. and the Coal Dock as potential deepwater dock sites.
The assessment of the sites included bathymetric surveys, a review of historic water levels and vessel characteristics and minimum draft requirements, assessments of the amount of time that mooring depth requirements can be met without dredging, and a review of the sites’ characteristics and opportunities to improve mooring potential.
The Crawford Wharf, where the cruise ships already dock, would need “significant dredging” to be deep enough to accommodate larger ships, the report stated. Expanding the Crawford Wharf could also disrupt its current use by Kingston 1000 Islands Cruises and personal watercraft in the area.
By comparison, the 1 Queen St. wharf would need moderate dredging, has sufficient mooring and is in good condition. It also provides a central location in the downtown
The Ontario Ministry of Transportation is in the process of completing an environmental assessment for the planned rebuilding of the adjacent Wolfe Island ferry terminal and the staff report suggests there is an opportunity to work on the 1 Queen St. wharf in conjunction with that project.
Source: thewhig.com
