Disappointing, but not surprising…

WSF is not going to be able to restore service on the Vashon Island or Bremerton routes this year as planned. While hiring is up, retirements are as well. This problem is not unique to Washington State Ferries or even Washington State. B.C. Ferries continues to have staffing issues, as does, the rest of the world.

About those new boats…

We’re now half-way through 2023 and there is no sign of any contract being awarded or, in fact, even being out to bid, making the state’s 2027 timeline for the first new hybrid boat looking to be dubious at best. There has been no update to the website on the project in months, the last entry stating:

Hybrid electric Olympic Class vessels 

Some of you may have read about bills in the 2023 legislative session that address how WSF will procure the five funded hybrid electric Olympic class vessels, or HEOCs. Due to the potential change in legislative direction on new vessel procurement, our planned Request for Proposal in spring 2023 is on hold until the legislative session ends, likely at the end of April. We will update this webpage and the HEOC interested parties once these policy issues have been decided. 

Well, that policy issue was decided. HB 1846 was signed into law and became effective on 11 May 2023. Since that time, there has been no word on if the bidding has been restarted or where the process is at.

Back in the day…

76 years ago, to be exact, on 25 June 1947 the Chinook made her maiden voyage from Seattle to Victoria, stopping at Port Townsend and Port Angeles. The ferry was so successful she was booked solid for months after he debut.

The ferry, much altered over the years, had a long and successful career, finally ended her days after a long lay-up in 1997.

Cost to build the Chinook in 1947: $2 million dollars ($27,275,964.00 in today’s dollars.)

Cost to build the Chimacum in 2016 : about $135 million.

Holidays, the bane of ferry systems…

WSF has Independence Day, B.C. Ferries has Canada Day, and it seems there are already several sailings canceled for the weekend due to that blight of every system everywhere: unscheduled maintenance.

Better late than never…

Four years after she was officially finished, and an additional $15 million to install quarters for the crew, the M/V Hubbard finally went into service for the Alaska Marine Highway.

From concept to sailing, it took seventeen years to get the Hubbard and her sister Tazlina on the the water.

The problem exists coast to coast…

Lest you thing it’s a “west coast thing”, the Steamship Authority, the company that provides service to and from Martha’s Vineyard, had to cancel several sailings due to staffing shortages as well.

The Malahat, well how ’bout that?

The venerable Malahat, ex-Napa Valley,built in 1910 as a passenger steamer had been converted to carry autos while working on San Francisco Bay. Black Ball picked up the ferry second hand, originally to replace the Olympic on the Port Angeles-Victoria run, but increased traffic on the Seattle-Bremerton route due to the increased workload at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard during WWII had her assigned to that route along with the Enetai, Kalakala, Willapa, and Chippewa. (The City of Sacramento would later join the route as well.)

Her passenger cabin gutted by fire in March, 1943, the ferry had a new house rebuilt, flush to the sides of the vessel with a new wheelhouse and crew’s quarters. The end result may have been practical, but it was far from aesthetically pleasing.

While on the Bremerton run’s fairly protected waters there doesn’t have seem to have been much of a problem. When Black Ball installed bow doors on her between May and June of 1951, intending to place her her to the Port Angeles-Victoria run for day service to supplement the Chinook, making the overnight run from Seattle, things changed.

The new cabin proved to have had a dire effect on her stability. The ferry lurched and rolled in the rougher seas of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, so much so that according to an article in The Sea Chest (Dec 1990) she “terrified her passengers.” Looking at her boxy design on the curved hull, it’s not hard to imagine her swaying back and forth like a metronome.

She only lasted on the run until 13 September, 1951, and then filling in for the Chinook on the 1-2 of October that year. After that, the Malahat did not return to the Port Angeles-Victoria route.

She last saw service running freight between Seattle and Port Townsend in the summer of 1952. She was sold in 1956 and towed to Portland to be converted into a floating restaurant. Unfortunately, the Zidell Machinery and Supply Company where she was moored at caught fire on 5 September, 1956, taking the poor Malahat with it.