Hyak

HYAK

CLASS: Super

BUILT: 1967, National Steel & Shipbuilding Company, San Diego, CA

OFFICIAL NUMBER: 508160 CALL SIGN: WX9439

L/B/D: 382 x 73 x 19 GROSS/NET TONS: 2704/1214 PASSENGERS/AUTOS: 2000/144 cars

PROPULSION: Diesel Electric, 8000 HP SPEED: 17 knots

NAME TRANSLATION: Chinook jargon: “fast” or “speedy.”

FINAL DISPOSITION: Retired 30 June 2019; stripped for parts at Eagle Harbor; moored at Kingston as of 2024.

HISTORY

These days, she’s called the “time capsule boat”, her vintage interior making her somewhat of a floating museum of the late 1960’s.

_{The launch of the Hyak. Author’s collection.}

Ever the workhorse, the Hyak, reliable to the last, had the distinction of becoming an inadvertent curiosity due to lack of funds in the late 1990’s resulting in her not getting a mid-life refurbishment. The gutting of WSF’s budget in the wake of car tab tax elimination in 1999 meant the Hyak wouldn’t get the same make over as sisters Yakima and Kaleetan. Over the next decade and a half, the ferry was patched up, cleaned and kept in service, with the eye still toward retirement. The last major work done on the ferry included getting the refurbished engines from the Jumbo Class and an elevator installed to extend the first Super Class ferry’s life, which was originally scheduled to be cut short in 2008.

Several things happened in the fleet, including the sudden withdrawal of the Steel Electrics in 2007. Plans to retire the Hyak quietly vanished.

_{This clipping shows the Hyak with her too-high green paint line, which was corrected not long after she went into service. Author’s collection.}

Realizing that the Hyak could be fully refurbished for an additional twenty years of service, the legislature budgeted in $20 million to finish the work on the ferry that had been coming in fits and starts over the years–including a much-needed interior updating. Bit by bit, the money vanished, as did the idea of a custom hybridization of her propulsion system.

With the Suquamish coming online, the Hyak was quickly (but not quietly) shuttled into retirement, her last service day coming June 29, 2019 serving her original communities of Seattle and Bremerton. Fans and long-time commuters gathered aboard the venerable ferry that had become a floating museum to take “one last ride.” As she crossed Puget Sound the for the last time under her own power, the traditional three prolonged blasts of the whistle—the Mariner’s Farewell—was offered by each fleet mate she encountered and returned by the Hyak. Upon completion of the day’s service the Hyak slipped quietly out of Bremerton and tied up at the Eagle Harbor Maintenance Facility, the telegraph being set to “Finished With Engines” at 12:16 AM on June 30.

_{On the Hyak, it was always 1967. Courtesy Zack Heistand.}

As of April 2024, the Hyak is still moored at Kingston, and turning increasingly green as algae covers her flanks.

The “voice” of the Hyak lives on, however, as one of the ferry’s whistles was installed at Climate Pledge Arena as the goal horn for Seattle’s NHL team, the Kraken. With a potential range of up to six miles, the horn is likely the loudest in the NHL–though it is toned down considerably so as not to deafen fans.

^{The Hyak in April 2024. The ferry continues to get more rusty, greener with algae and covered in cormorant guano each day.}