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TO keep its fleet of 92 vessels running smoothly, Hong Kong Ferry Co annually budgets more than $100 million. This includes costs of spare parts and labour charges.

  The fleet includes triple-deck ferries, double-deck ferries and vehicular ferries, plus two types of hovercrafts - the smaller HM2 (they have 23) and the HM5 (four). The company also introduced two new catamarans into service last September.

  The catamarans run between Central and Tuen Mun in the morning, before being switched to serve the company's Macau route.

  Logistics manager George Lung said the company's fleet maintenance programme was related to regulations laid down by the Marine Department.

  The company has to put each vessel through one survey each year, conducted by Marine Department inspectors or surveyors to certify the seaworthiness of the ferries.

  It takes the company's Logistics Department 28 working days to completely overhaul its hovercraft for the annual survey, exclusive of minor maintenance and emergency repairs, while it takes half the time on average to do the job on conventional ferries.

  ''Apart from this, we also conduct minor periodic maintenance, such as the replacement of fuel injectors, replacement of lube oil and fuel oil filters,'' said Mr Lung.

 The company has two yards to carry out maintenance work and emergency repairs on the ferries and hovercraft.

  One is located at the Hong Kong Shipyard in Kowloon and the other one at Tsing Yi Island.

  The department is manned by 20 ''on-shore'' staff, ranging from engineers and assistant engineers to technicians and fitters.

  At any given time, the company will have up to eight vessels, such as conventional ferries or hovercrafts, laid up at its yard for maintenance to meet the standards set for annual surveys or emergency repair work.

  Each vessel has been assigned a ferry engineer and one or two fitters to carry out daily inspections and part replacement.

  The cost of keeping the fleet in top working order is, therefore, astronomical.

  While overall maintenance costs for the conventional ferries can be forecast with relative accuracy, the same does not apply to hovercrafts.

  Because hovercrafts ride on a cushion of air high above the surface of the water, they are susceptible to damage from floating debris that abounds in Hong Kong waters.

   Mr Lung estimated that such debris caused more than $5 million worth of damage each year. This figure did not include costs resulting from loss of earnings due to ferries being laid up.

  The most common form of damage involves the hovercraft's air cushions, which can be easily torn.

  In more serious cases, entire sections of the cushions have to be replaced.

  The costs for such replacements can run into thousands of dollars. The stern cushion alone costs more than $100,000, while the bow and side cushions are equally as expensive.

  The company has to make about 260 unscheduled dockings each year of the HM2 and HM5 hovercrafts to repair damage caused by floating debris.

  ''All this eats into our regular maintenance work,'' said Mr Lung.

  He said that if the government succeeded in cleaning up Hong Kong harbour, the firm's operating costs would be substantially reduced.

  Mr David Ho, the firm's general manager, said that, in the past, before the arrival of competition in the form of the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) and the cross-harbour tunnels, ferry companies enjoyed a monopoly of traffic across the harbour.

  This changed from the early 1970s with the opening of the Cross-Harbour Tunnel and, in the 1980s, with the arrival of the MTR.

  Because Hong Kong does not have a training facility for maintenance personnel, the company sends its engineers and other technical staff to Singapore for training on the machinery related to new equipment, such as the HM5 hovercraft and the catamaran.

  The German company, MTU, has set up a training school in Singapore, which provides the technical support for the suppliers' diesel engines used by the firm to power its ferries, hovercrafts and catamarans.



Costly business of floating fleet