Seas Not to Rough for all the Small Squid Boats that go out daily

Lets just be clear. That is not a ferry. Its a cattermaran being used to ferry (aka tramsport) people to and from hua hin and pattaya.

 

Reading between the lines it seems that the service on offer is very unreliable.  The choice of boat should be determined by the conditions it will be reasonably expected to safely endure. A rush job poorly thought out...and that is a great shame as that had the potential to be a hugely benifical service.

 

4 hours ago, Mousehound said:

The size of a vessel has little to do with how seaworthy it is.  Plenty of 10meter vessels have made serious ocean voyages and come through huge seas.  The condition of the vessel, how well it is handled, its design, its construction  and how well it is loaded are the important factors. 

Correct, but speed will be reduced drastically with rough seas, that's why I seriously doubt they will ever make the 113 km journey in less then two hours.

The boat in this picture doesn't really look much different to the various ones I have been on that ply the southern islands.  Is the weather in the north of the Gulf really so much worse than in the south? (near samui and KPG for example- the Chumporn-Tao-KPG-Samui one does OK-I've been on it dozens of times.)  Surely the weather and seas are at least potentially far worse on the Andaman side?

there is a big storm down south right now generating wind and waves.

when the sea calms down around Hua Hin it can be totally flat for days.

 

the distance to Pattaya is far greater than running out to Koh Sumui.

The Koh Sumui island acts a form of shelter on the last/first part of the route.

It is open sea all the way across the gulf from Hua Hin to Pattaya.

 

I am sure there will be days where the ferry will not be able to operate.

 

It just comes down to if you want to be burned alive in a mini van or drown at sea.

 

The size of a vessel has little to do with how seaworthy it is.  Plenty of 10meter vessels have made serious ocean voyages and come through huge seas.  The condition of the vessel, how well it is handled, its design, its construction  and how well it is loaded are the important factors. 

It was built in Norway in 1990 before it was sold to China so there's nothing wrong with the construction. A similar vessel is crossing the baltic sea which can be rough at times. I suspect they do not have competent staff onboard , that would be my main worries as a passenger. What kind of training do they have ?

In the BP I saw an article about a navy frigate being assigned to shadow the ferry on a sea trial.

 

It shows, if there were ever any doubt about it, given its ill-thought-out nature and indecent haste to get it running, about what kind of shadowy commercial 'forces' are behind the whole enterprise.