An internal Washington State Ferries investigation into an August 15 sailing of the Cathlamet from Bremerton to Seattle, which was called back in order to unload 484 passengers, reveals that the boat wasn’t actually over capacity.

Todd Dowler, a WSF labor relations manager, was tasked with investigating the incident on August 25 by WSDOT Deputy Secretary Cam Gilmour. A Sept. 11 memo by Dowler, citing interviews with WSF employees, other witnesses and video surveillance, explains that the Cathlamet was not overloaded and there were approximately 1,073 passengers onboard when the ferry sailed from Bremerton at 4:23 p.m.

Just over four minutes later, though, the boat had returned to the dock and 484 passengers were unloaded, with assistance from the Washington State Patrol. The boat finally left for Seattle just seconds shy of 5 p.m.

The Aug. 15 foul-up came at a particularly bad time. Hempfest got underway in Seattle that day at noon and a Seahawks game kicked off that night at 7 p.m.

Passengers returning from Seattle that night got free rides home, but the incident added fodder to an ongoing series of WSF blunders this summer and fall. Those missteps include a power failure on the Tacoma that left it disabled just off Bainbridge Island run, a Labor Day fuel spill in Kingston, suspension of the agency’s operations director for disrespecting Transportation Secretary Lynn Peterson and a less-than-smooth hiring process for a new ferries director.

The maximum number of passengers that may be transported aboard the Cathlamet and the Sealth, the other boat being used on Aug. 15, is 1,200 people per a Certificate of Inspection from the United States Coast Guard. According to Dowler’s investigation, witnesses and ferries workers said nothing seemed amiss on the day of the incident.

“Statements from multiple witnesses indicate the number of passengers waiting to board the 4:20 p.m sailing were about the same as the number of passengers that waited to board the 3 p.m. sailing,” Dowler wrote. “The 3 p.m. sailing was at 86 percent capacity (1,033 passengers onboard).”

A ferry worker who regularly commutes between Bremerton and Seattle told Dowler that she walked off the vessel and saw the crowd waiting to board. She described the crowd as being a “fairly decent load, but seemed very normal for this date and time. Another WSF employee was among those who boarded the 4:20 p.m. sailing and said it did not seem like there were more people loading than there had been on the 3 p.m. sailing. Another witness described it as “par for the course on a game day Friday in the summertime.”

The worker assigned to count boarding passengers with a handheld clicker said she grew concerned when the count on the device reached 800. She asked a co-worker what the boat’s capacity was and he allegedly told her, “Not sure, 1,200 or 1,600” and then told her not to worry about it because the captain is “cool.”

The boat departed prior to a headcount being completed, which is apparently routine. When the worker counting walk-on passengers conferred with a worker counting vehicle passengers conferred, they arrived at 1,684 passengers. That information was relayed to the captain, who asked if the workers’ count was accurate. When he was told it was thought to be accurate, he returned the boat to the Bremerton dock.

“The passenger attendant counting walk-on passengers believed 1,461 passengers walked onto the Cathlamet,” Dowler wrote in his report. “This combined with the count of 223 passengers boarding the ferry via vehicles brought the total passenger count to 1,684.”

Dowler said video evidence showed that wasn’t true.

The worker counting passengers said she believes the clicker “jumped numbers” when she was counting passengers.

She said malfunctions had happened before and the device has skipped. A WSF supervisor confirmed that he had heard reports about faulty clickers in the past.