The curious photo hanging in Kingston’s Axe Handle Café shows the ferry Nisqually after being T-boned on July 27, 1963, at 6:53 a.m., seven minutes out of Kingston.

Rex Lee Carlaw recalled the incident:

When I was a kid, the Tai Chung, a Taiwanese freighter, rammed the Nisqually in the fog. The bow went right up in the cafeteria! There were no injuries, and Nisqually’s broad sponsoning of the hull kept her from taking on water, but she was out about 10 days for repairs. Klahanie and Kehloken ran a two-boat schedule daily in the interim, actually improving service, and San Mateo came on weekends.

Nisqually was pulled out of the yard midway through her refit to run on a Sunday due to the long lines. That was the first time I ever saw four vessels running, but it worked so well it was continued for summer weekends until 1967. After that the larger Tillikum was available and we went down to three boats. Funny to think Tillikum was a quantum leap in capacity then and now may be surplused.

Nisqually had other scrapes including ramming the dock at Edmonds (twice), Kingston and Lopez Island, as well as running aground at Orcas.

When built in 1927, her steel hull (with wooden upperworks) and diesel-electric propulsion were considered the most advanced of the time. Named Mendocino, she served on San Francisco Bay until 1938, when the ferries were replaced by bridges. Capt. Peabody’s Puget Sound Navigation Co. — the Black Ball Line — brought her here and renamed her Nisqually. She worked the Kingston-Edmonds-Port Ludlow routes.

When Washington State acquired the ferry routes in 1951, the Nisqually was Kingston’s primary ferry. Other smaller vessels like Shasta, San Mateo, Klahanie, Chetzemoka, Kehloken, Vashon, Leschi, and Crosline ran extra service with Nisqually. The larger, 100-car Tillikum took over in 1968, with Illahee and San Mateo providing extra summer runs.

Nisqually and her sister ships were called the “Steel Electric” ferries. In 1957, they were widened by eight feet — extra beam that likely helped Nisqually survive her ramming. By 1981, their wooden decks for cars and passengers had been replaced with modern aluminum ones. In 2007, while serving as Port Townsend’s primary boats, severe corrosion and cracking was found in their 80-year-old, riveted hulls. “For safety’s sake,” they all were pulled offline that Thanksgiving weekend.

Washington State Ferries considered replacing the ancient hulls while keeping their relatively new upper-works. Kitsap Transit’s Carlisle II is still lookin’ good and going strong after 96 years and the “Steel Electrics” were charming to ride and economical to run. The “re-hull” price of $40 million each was thought better spent on new boats, so they were sold for scrap instead.

Obstruction-ism?
Why, in summer, are ferries sighted in San Juans’ Obstruction Pass? Although the name forebodes calamity, Obstruction Pass is an alternate “storm” ferry route. Skippers occasionally re-familiarize themselves with it during the good weather.

We got nooo money honey
While the budget deal has most of Olympia popping corks, at the other end of the bar WSDOT-ers are staring glumly into their beer. They were faced with delivering big-ticket, metropolitan projects, which were becoming unaffordable, while also sustaining the system. A 10.5-cent gas tax was proposed to do all of that.

But as only 22 percent of the tax went to sustain the system, a priority for the rest of the state, the proposal floundered. Had the projects been scaled back, and a more restrained 2.5-cent tax deal been made, we’d be able to fill the potholes, keep the bridges standing, the ferries running … and the state Department of Transportation would be sipping champagne with the rest of Olympia.

— Ferry Fare is written by Walt Elliott, chairman of the Kingston Ferry Advisory Committee. Contact him at elliottmoore@comcast.net