||| FROM WASHINGTON STATE FERRIES |||
Behind the scenes: Eagle Harbor Maintenance Facility
Did you know our Eagle Harbor Maintenance Facility on Bainbridge Island has 10 different trade shops? Each of them is vital in maintaining a fleet of 21 vessels and 20 terminals. While I could go on for a long time about how much the facility and its staff of more than 100 employees do to keep our system in operation, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here’s a short behind-the-scenes video on why Eagle Harbor is so important to WSF and our region.
Our Eagle Harbor Maintenance Facility on Bainbridge Island is the largest state-owned shipyard in the United States.
Fitting vessel crews with fire gear and equipment
Before anyone can work on one of our vessels, they must go through weeks of intensive training, which includes personal safety and survival, classroom time and even firefighting! In fact, crewmembers are custom fitted for fire gear and equipment. Doing this is a highly physical process with supplies carried onto and off each boat. In a few weeks, our safety team will roll out a labor-saving mobile fit test van with the latest fit testing machine software that will allow us to perform each fit test in half the time as they do now!
Safety Officer Jessica Reed in our new mobile fit test van, outfitted with fit testing equipment and supplies for firefighting.
South Dearborn Street closed near Colman Dock
South Dearborn Street near our Seattle terminal is closed for three weeks for sewer, drainage and paving work. The street and northern sidewalk are closed between Alaskan Way South and First Avenue South through Wednesday, Aug. 25. Give yourself extra travel time heading in or out of Colman Dock and plan on using South King Street, one block to the north.
New tribal art installed at Mukilteo terminal
Tribal art created by Shoalwater Bay Tribe member Earl Davis was recently installed near the transit center adjacent to our new Mukilteo terminal. The pieces add to the multiple already-installed cultural motifs and images there recognizing the important tribal history of the site.
Artist Earl Davis created these pieces to remind people that all things are connected – the land, the seas, the sky and heavens.
Local man and his child build a ferry out of Legos
When Shane Deegan tagged our Twitter account (@wsferries) in a tweet last week, we had to retweet it out to our 37,000 followers. The tweet included photos of one of our vessels made from Lego bricks. Shane says it took him and his kid two weeks to create the ferry by looking at photos and memory. It’s no surprise our retweet is one of our most popular in July! Incredible!
Shane Deegan says the Lego ferry he and his child created now needs a home and plans to build our Lopez Island terminal next.
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Cool ferry Shane.
Interesting, but what about the planned down-sizing of the San Juans route beginning on Monday, 19 August, as shown in the reservations system? The 90-car Sealth will replace the 124-car Chelan, and after some further vessel reassignments, Orcas Island will lose 162 daily Anacortes spaces, and Friday Harbor will lose 28.
And why might the Chelan be removed from this route? To prepare it for possible deployment to Sidney in September? . . .
At its June webinar, WSF indicated that such a planned capacity reduction was considered but would not be implemented, retaining two 144-car Super/Olympic Class ferries and one 124-car Issaquah Class boat for the rest of the summer.
Is the reservations system wrong or did WSF mislead us? (Maybe we should rename the smaller boat the “Stealth.”)
Is this the change that someone else posted was an error? I hope so.