In December, we went through WSF’s performance in managing operating costs. It was about what could be expected given their yoke of historical and political constraints. The same story goes for capital spending.
With an out-of-the-blue retirement of our four “Steel Electric” boats on Thanksgiving weekend 2007, WSF capital spending became all about building replacements. When inspections found that the 80-year-old “Steel Electrics” had terminal rust cancer, these gracious old-timers were exiled to a Mexican boneyard.
To alleviate the instant crisis on Port Townsend-Keystone, WSF chartered Pierce County’s Steilacoom II ferry until permanent replacements could be found. This could have kick-started the long-awaited building of 144-car ferries, but Port Townsend torpedoed that idea. 144’s would disgorge too many cars onto their streets — no Kingston-like traffic for them!
So WSF looked at used boats, replicating the Steilacoom II, and my favorite: replacing the bottom half of the old boats while retaining their newer, museum-quality superstructures. Instead, WSF’s Washington version of Nantucket Sound’s Island Home ferry. WSF eliminated some stuff, like thrusters, steam heating, AC, enclosed ends, and drop-down car decks. Added in was 12 feet for more tankage. Although this stripped-down version should have been cheaper than the original, thanks to a single non-competitive contract we paid more than twice what the Island Home cost and three times the cost of a new Steilacoom II. Yikes!
So how good a boat is it? While crews like the boat’s speed and maneuverability, with her built-in two-degree list they’ve also nicknamed her “I-lean.” When she came into service she had a lot of problems like engine vibrations, door misalignments and electrical problems which crews thought were slow to be fixed. Recall that the new Issaquah boats were called the “citrus class” (lemons) because of the time to fix a control system that was prone to crashing into docks.
Riders like the interior and comfortable ride of the new boat. You can wander about three passenger decks while kids play hide-and seek in a labyrinth of staircases and seating arrangements. She’s a popular boat on Port Townsend-Keystone, but she’s not as good a fit elsewhere. On the San Juans route, you have to turn some vehicles around inside the boat. As only small vehicles can do that comfortably on “I-lean,” trucks often have to sit out a sailing. On Point Defiance-Tahlequah’s short run, with engines of a boat twice her size, the Chetzemoka has to push dock at power to get them up to temperature. On other ferry runs where they use larger boats, the boat’s small, 64-car capacity creates overloads when she has to fill in.
In summary, WSF had to build a boat quickly for Port Townsend and did just that. As is often said, you can have quick, cheap or good, but not all three. We got quick, definitely not cheap, and the verdict’s out on how good.
Grinched!
Staffing issues and breakdowns continued to flummox WSF as Bremerton, Vashon, San Juan and Mukilteo riders were left in the lurch with service cancellations over the holidays. Age drives reliability and WSF has the oldest average ferry age, by far, of any other system. With WSF paying twice the price that others pay for new boats, we can’t afford to buy the replacements needed to solve the problem. Why do boats cost us so much? The State Auditor has just released a report on this question. We’ll go over that audit report next time.
— FerryFare is written by Walt Elliott, chairman of the Kingston Ferry Advisory Committee. He is also chairman of the Kingston Port Commission. Contact him at elliottmoore@comcast.net.
