A public reference property of Baalvion

Open data · every figure carries its source

World Shipping DirectoryCompanies · Ships · Fleets

A public reference property of Baalvion

Open data · every figure carries its source

World Shipping DirectoryCompanies · Ships · Fleets

Ferry

Vacationland

IMO 5428568CanadaBuilt 1951

Operated by BC Ferries

Photo: Tichnor Brothers, Publisher · Public domain · file

No gross tonnage is recorded for this vessel, so it cannot be ranked by size. Rank is only shown where the underlying measurement exists.

In brief

About Vacationland

Full article ↗

Vacationland was an American double-ended automobile ferry, built by Great Lakes Engineering Works for the Michigan State Highway Department. She was built to operate the route from St. Ignace to Mackinaw City through the Straits of Mackinac year-round, and was equipped with powerful engines and a reinforced hull to break through heavy ice. Vacationland was launched in 1951, and entered service in 1952. She was the final ferry built for the St. Ignace–Mackinaw City service, which was replaced by the Mackinac Bridge in 1957.
Following the opening of the Mackinac Bridge in 1957, the Vacationland was laid up until 1960, when she was sold to a private operator on Lake Erie as the Jack Dalton. She was repossessed by the State of Michigan for nonpayment shortly afterwards, and in 1961 she began service on the St. Lawrence River as the Père Nouvel, inaugurating a popular route between Baie-Comeau and Pointe-au-Père, Quebec.
In 1967, she was sold to BC Ferries in British Columbia and renamed the Sunshine Coast Queen. She was the first double-ended ferry in the BC Ferries fleet, a design that the service adopted for all new ferries after her. High operating costs and rising fuel prices forced BC Ferries to retire the vessel, affectionately known as the "Susy Q," in 1977.

Quoted from Vacationland (Great Lakes ferry) on English Wikipedia, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Vessel particulars

Identification and dimensions

Every value is as recorded in the source. Blanks are values the source does not hold — none is estimated from a sister ship or a class average.

Identification

IMO number: 5428568
IMO check digit: Valid
MMSI
Call sign
Flag state: Canada
Port of registry: —
Vessel class: —
Status: in service

Construction

Type: Ferry
Builder: Great Lakes Engineering Works
Yard number
Launched: —
Year built: 1951
Designed to carry: —
Owner: BC Ferries
Operator on record: —

Measurements

Gross tonnage: —
Net tonnage: —
Displacement: —
Length overall: 119.3 m
Beam: 75.0 m
Draft: 16.0 m
Service speed: —
Passenger capacity: 600

In context

How Vacationland compares

Every figure in this section is a count, a rank or a percentile over vessels actually held in this registry — not over the world fleet, which is larger. Nothing here is estimated.

Canada is the country of registry for 633 vessels in this directory. The most common class under that flag is vessels this registry holds no type classification for (404 ships), and the median vessel measures 1,800 GT. Browse every ship flagged Canada.

Narrowing to both dimensions at once, this registry holds 26 ferrys flying the Canada flag.

Vacationland was built in 1951, making it 75 years old. It is one of 151 hulls in this registry delivered that year, a cohort whose median tonnage is 722 GT. Across the whole of the 1950s the registry holds 2,005 vessels, median 960 GT. The median build year across the entire registry is 1995.

The registry attributes 24 vessels to Great Lakes Engineering Works, with a median tonnage of 8,018 GT, delivered between 1905 and 1960. See the rest of that yard’s output.

At 119.3 m overall, Vacationland is 15.3 m longer than the 104.0 m median for ferrys on record, with a beam of 75.0 m and a draft of 16.0 m.

IMO numbers are issued in broadly chronological blocks. Within 500 either side of 5428568 this registry holds 10 other vessels, whose median build year is 1956 and which range from 1938 to 1964. That places this hull’s registration in the same part of the series, consistent with its recorded build year of 1951.

Its IMO number, 5428568, carries its own check digit. The first six digits are weighted seven down to two and summed — 5×7 + 4×6 + 2×5 + 8×4 + 5×3 + 6×2 = 128 — and the last digit of that total, 8, must equal the seventh digit, 8. It does, so this number is well formed.

Nearest by IMO number

Ship	IMO	Built
Pythagore	5428738	—
Wan Chun	5428740	1940
MV Mercedes I	5428829	1952
Brand IV	5428867	1938

Same yard, same years

Built alongside at Great Lakes Engineering Works

No ship class is recorded for this vessel, so these are not asserted to be sister ships — they are contemporaries from the same builder, shown because that is what the data supports.

Cason J.Callaway

1952 · United States