BC South Coast · Salish Sea (Burrard Inlet · Georgia Strait · Haro Strait · Juan de Fuca) · 1995–2026 · real TSB data
marker size ∝ vessel length · white ring = engine failure · amber ring = landmark disaster
The Salish Sea is one of the busiest waterways on the coast: ferries, tugs, cargo/container ships and the fishing fleet have engine failures, groundings and collisions here every year, close to Vancouver and Victoria. The Marathassa bunker spill (2015, English Bay) and the Cape Apricot terminal strike (2012, Roberts Bank — 128 m of the Westshore causeway destroyed) are highlighted, along with three historic Active Pass ferry disasters — the deadly 1970 Sergey Yesenin ramming of the Queen of Victoria, the 1979 Queen of Alberni grounding on Collinson Reef, and the 1992 Royal Vancouver fog collision. Bright, white-ringed dots are engine/machinery failures. Click a marker for the vessel, conditions and TSB summary.
Real data. Plotted from the Transportation Safety Board MARSISdb public occurrence + vessel views (the two CSVs provided), filtered to the BC South Coast / Salish Sea, 1995–2026, for ferry/passenger, tug, cargo-container and fishing vessels. The Marathassa (2015 English Bay bunker spill) and the Cape Apricot (2012 — a 289-m bulk carrier under pilotage cut through the Westshore causeway at Roberts Bank, the proposed VLCC terminal site) are highlighted within the real data. Positions are as recorded by the TSB — occasionally a generic reference point rather than the exact spot; where the TSB narrative names the real location (e.g. a dock strike logged mid-island but described at the Village Bay terminal), the marker is plotted there, with a note in its popup. Three pre-window Active Pass disasters (1970, 1979, 1992 — before the TSB dataset begins) are added as context markers from historical records and the TSB's own 1992 investigation, with approximate positions noted in their popups. The optional purple layer is a different dataset: BC's Report-a-Spill line (ENV Dangerous Goods Incident Reports, oil & fuel subset, 2021–2026) — the chronic background of fuel-dock drips, sunken boats, sheens and tanker-truck spills that never reach a federal investigation. Quantities in that layer are as reported, often precautionary "up to / potential" figures rather than verified releases.
How to read this map. These dots show where incidents happened, not a formal incident rate. The TSB cautions that marine-occurrence data have statistical limits — modest annual totals, year-to-year variability, evolving reporting definitions, and the fact that many occurrences are recorded but not independently investigated. Incidents cluster where traffic is dense, so the Salish Sea's busy harbours and ferry lanes will naturally show more dots. This map is a consequence-visibility tool: it makes the everyday reality of engine failures, groundings and collisions in these crowded waters tangible, next to where a laden-tanker spill would put benzene plumes and oiled shorelines. (Rate-per-transit normalization from AIS traffic is a planned enhancement — see the roadmap.)