_{Rosario, departing Anacortes for Sideny, British Columbia, in the 1930’s. RPPC colorize by the author.}

BUILT/REBUILT: 1923/31 Dockton, WA and Ballard Marine Railway Co. Seattle, WA

PREVIOUS/LATER NAMES:  a. Whidby, b. Rosario

OFFICIAL NUMBER: 223051 CALL SIGN: WPPQ

L/B/D: 156 x 41 x 9   GROSS/NET TONS: 290/197   PASSENGERS/AUTOS: 312/32

PROPULSION: Fairbanks Morse diesel, 600 HP    SPEED: 10 knots 

NAME TRANSLATION: Spanish for rosary; a strait in the San Juan Islands, where the ferry sailed after rebuilding.  Capt. Kellett gave it the present name in 1847 which is a simplification of the name Canal de Nuestra Senora del Rosario la Marinara, given in 1790 by Manuel Quimper.

FINAL DISPOSITION: Retired by Washington State Ferries in 1951.  Sold in 1952 to Eugene Scheerer of Everett for use as a processing vessel.  On register as late as 1981, the superstructure was bulldozed, and the hull buried under a parking lot on the Snohomish River.

HISTORY

Washington State Ferries policy of selling off ferries that were too costly to maintain when it would be cheaper to build a new boat began almost at once.  Sailing the shortest time of any ferry for Washington State Ferries was the wood ferry Rosario.

Puget Sound Navigation had built the Rosario in 1923 for the route from Everett to Whidbey Island.  Built at the shipyard at Dockton, Vashon Island, the ferry emerged as a single-ended vessel with the name Whidby. For eight years she worked on that run, when PSN took another look at the boat and sent her into the yard for a rebuild.

The ferry was extended an additional 41 feet.  The passenger cabin was extended, and her inefficient steam plant was removed and replaced with a 600 horsepower Sumner diesel.  She emerged a virtually new vessel—and with a new name: Rosario taken from Rosario Strait in the San Juans, which is where the rebuilt ferry was sent to work. From 1931 until 1941 the Rosario sailed from Anacortes through San Juans and up to Sidney, British Columbia. She held the route until traffic began to out-pace her, and PSN sent up the Vashon. She was then moved to the Port Townsend-Keystone route until Black Ball abandoned the route in 1943, and then to the Seattle-Manchester route, not settling into a routine until the mid-1940’s when she started on the Point White-Bremerton route.

In 1945 she was repowered again, this time with the diesel engines from the old Kitsap County Transportation ferry Ballard. When Washington State Ferries took over the Puget Sound Navigation Company in 1951, they discontinued the Point White-Bremerton run.

Now under state ownership, the Rosario was moved to the Suquamish-Indianola-Seattle run while the Agate Pass Bridge, linking Bainbridge Island to the mainland Kitsap Peninsula, was being completed.

Retired immediately after the bridge was built, the Rosario was mothballed. She was sold in June of 1953, having only actually sailed for Washington State Ferries for about 5 months.  Converted into a cannery, she was moved up to Everett, where she worked for a number of years.  Eventually the Rosario became silted in, but was still in use as of the late 1970’s.  In the mid 1980’s she was bulldozed down and the hull filled in.  Today the site of the Rosario is covered over with a building.