From what I have gathered from more "amateur" public discussion pages about the RCN, Davie and Asterix very much have a strange cult following that has seemingly sprung up around them. Davie had a very positive public spin by apparently putting Asterix through her conversion on budget and on schedule, people seemingly elevated them atop some pedestal as being the shining example of Canadian shipbuilders. The near constant fanboying that many people do to Davie, Asterix and her potential sister seem to rub a lot of people the wrong way. Especially when it seems that Asterix is raking in a pretty penny for a relatively austere capability provided to the RCN, it comes off as a bit shallow for people to assume Davie is some master shipbuilder with the best interests of the nations defense in mind. They are just another domestic shipbuilder, one that has seemingly been skating around on a lot of public goodwill compared to Seaspan and Irving (especially Irving who many seem to treat as the shipbuilders equivalent of the anti-Christ). In my own personal opinion, Asterix fills a temporary niche for the RCN until JSS but the overall lease cost and capability provided does not seem sustainable long term.
Davie played a really good publicity and social media game, no doubt about that. And they delivered a product, on time and on budget. Asterix has been a busy bee since she came into service; personally I have RAS'd material and fuel from her on various occasions. Yup she cant go into harms way, the reality is she shouldn't be going into harms way.
Is the whole leasing idea costing more in the long run, maybe... probably... but they did offer to sell to us and
WE made the decision to lease.
We also way under budgeted how much
we would use her.
We should have bought both Asterix and Obilix. They would have been a great compliment to the JSS when they come online.
The other issue is, on the east coast, if there is such a history of Irving producing piss poor work, poor quality control, some on this forum have used to the word
sabotage, and down right theft that it will take generations of stellar products coming out of that yard to take the bad taste out of most people mouths.
I am happy to see we have refueling capability, I am happy we have some sailors that get to go to sea or deploy in outstanding conditions. I wish I would have had the chance to sail in her.
I've never sailed west coast and therefore wont talk about Seaspan.