— from Washington State Ferries —
Washington State Ferries announced [Wednesday, March 1, 2017] the sale of its oldest ferry, Evergreen State. The 63-year-old ferry sold for $300,000 to Jones Broadcasting, LLC. The new owners plan to use it for active ferry service in the protected waters of the southern Caribbean.
“The Evergreen State is a special ferry. It was the first vessel custom built for Washington State Ferries in 1954,” said Ferries Chief of Staff Elizabeth Kosa. “She served our customers well for six decades, but it is important that she is sold so we can free up dock space and focus maintenance on our current fleet.”
The 87-car Evergreen State features World War II surplus drive motors and carried tens of thousands of passengers and vehicles in our state. It was the first of the three Evergreen State class ferries and served on several routes including Seattle/Bainbridge and the San Juan Islands Interisland routes. WSF decommissioned the Evergreen State in 2016.
Plans are to move the Evergreen State from WSF’s Eagle Harbor Maintenance Facility on Bainbridge Island to a temporary Puget Sound moorage in March. The new owner will tow the vessel from the Pacific Northwest to Grenada, when the weather improves, likely in early summer.
The Evergreen State is one of two state ferries put up for sale in 2016 and purchased in 2017. The ferry Hiyu, was sold earlier this month to a local business owner who intends to use the vessel as a floating entertainment venue on Lake Union.
Read Orcas Issues story on Evergreen State retirement from June 2014.
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I served as an oiler on the Evergreen State, on and off 1977-1980. She was un-lovely and mostly un-loved by her engineroom crews. Nicknamed the Evergreen Mistake, perhaps we were a bit hard on her. She was dependable.
Not to get too technical, but the drive motors (electric motors that drive the propeller shafts) were–to my knowledge–not surplus. It was the diesel engines, that generated the electricity for the drive motors, that were surplus. One was from a power plant, the other from a submarine. Both were World War II vintage, from the Electro-Motive Corporation, originally designed for railroad locomotives.
A memory going back 40 years can be hazy. The two Cleveland Diesel engines, I remember hearing back when I was an oiler on the Evergreen State working the San Juan Islands, came from a destroyer escort and a power plant, both WW-2 surplus. More recent sources indicate it was the electric drive motors, not the diesels, that were surplus. I’m sure Bob Jensen, who was chief engineer aboard her back in the 70s, would know for certain, but I’m thinking he’s long since passed on.
One thing I’ve just learned from a fellow oiler from that time, is that the old Cleveland diesels (related to the Winton engine company and the (Electro-motive Corporation) were replaced with more modern prime movers, probably at some point during the last decade. As was the wall-type control panel.
My favorite boat to work on (also serving the San Juan Islands) was the old wooden-hulled Vashon. Next to her, the Evergreen State was the last word in modernity.