— by John B. Vezina, Government Relations Director, Washington State Ferries —
To San Juan County & Anacortes Councilmembers:
As you know, we have been without a service relief vessel since spring, when the Elwha, scheduled for the San Juan Islands this summer, was removed from service for emergency steel replacement. This led to a service disruption to our Sidney route at the end of the summer, when the Hyak had to be removed for emergency repairs. Now, with the summer season complete, we face two weeks with seven boats out of service, four for emergency repairs (including the Hyak and Elwha, assigned to the San Juan Islands) and three vessels for Coast Guard required shipyard work. This means we must adjust service on San Juan Islands routes.
Beginning Monday, October 22, and running through Sunday, November 4, we will run a three-boat schedule in the islands. Unfortunately, this means canceling Sidney service for those two weeks, as we focus on domestic service. It will also mean cancelling reservations for that fortnight with passengers sailing on a first come, first served basis, as our current reservation system can’t be amended with a new schedule. The Olympic Class Samish (144 cars) and Issaquah Class Chelan (124 cars) will be assigned to the Anacortes/Friday Harbor/Orcas/Lopez/Shaw runs, with the Evergreen State Class Tillikum (87 cars) on the interisland route.
We understand the impact this service disruption will have on our passengers and have looked at every scenario to avoid it. Downsizing a route is our very last option, but it is not possible to maintain our current schedule with seven boats out of service. I have attached the three-boat schedule we’ll use for those two weeks, the result of contingency planning between WSF and the San Juan Islands Ferry Advisory Committee. We hope getting this schedule to the public 11 days before the service disruption will allow our passengers to plan trips, even without reservations. The schedule leaves the Interisland schedule intact and gives each island six sailings a day. We will be sending out passenger alerts and reaching out to media today to alert the public to this change of service.
At every public meeting we’re holding on our Long Range Plan, our passengers tell us their number one priority is stabilizing the fleet. The plan will call for new vessels and increased maintenance time. While we have done the best we can with what we’ve got, unplanned maintenance and federal regulations necessitate this disruption.
Seven ferries out of service… Really?
Writing from Japan, which has ferries zipping about in every direction. Perhaps we need to stop building the new ferries in WA State since the performance record seems abysmal. (Japan has excellent infrastructure and is constantly improving it. Why can’t our country do this? There seems to be a huge drain of our resources going somewhere. Certainly not to infrastructure.)
We need to buy our ferries from a reputable builder. The failures of our expensive new ones are shocking.
There’s a legal requirement that we “buy American.” But the ferries serving us, built right here in the US of A in accordance with state law, seem not to perform very well.
The law needs changing. Ferries better than ours are built all over the world, and for less money too.
Our taxes subsidize an inefficient industry that builds an inferior product. Do you like that?
Complain. Make the legislature change the law! And if they don’t, vote ’em out of office!
Obsolescence is occurring faster than the construction of new ferries. You can’t slow the former, but you can increase the speed of construction and amount of the latter. We’ve seen this coming/happening for many years, but the funding source scarcity has not allowed the solution.
“Reliability” & “stabilizing the fleet” means enough money funneled into this part of the State transportation system, period. What does it take to impress our legislators to that fact???
Thank you, WSF for doing the best you can, given the situation…..
Steve- a slight correction to your statement (but in agreement with your theme):
The state law requires that the ferries be built not just in the USA, but IN Washington.
I would hope the legislature would realize after the build of the Samish that we need to be looking farther than our own boarders to assure that we are getting the best price and quality. If the Samish was a car, it would have been returned under the lemon-law long ago.