from the Washington State Ferries (WSF)
Monday, February 18, the 87-car M/V Tillikum has replaced the 144-car M/V Yakima as the number 2 vessel on the Anacortes/San Juan Islands route until further notice. This is a 57-car reduction in vessel capacity. Drivers may experience loading delays. We apologize for the inconvenience. Updates will occur when more information is available.
This alert was sent on 02/18/2019 at 6:43AM to subscribers of the following routes: Anacortes / San Juan Islands
Why did they replace the ferry?
Yakima is out for three weeks for annual maintenance and USCG inspection. Most annual’s are scheduled for winter to minimize impacts, but WSF doesn’t have enough boats. The only available spare was the Salish– a 64-car vessel which runs PT/Coupville in the summer and is too small for pretty much anything else, except our interisland in the winter. And the Tillikum is too slow to hold the schedule for the Anacortes runs, but that’s all there is.
Elwha is due back in a couple of days, following her annual which should restore service– barring some other hiccup.
The problem is old boats– most of the ferries we get are over 50 years old. WSF’s recently-released Long Range Plan calls for an aggressive build schedule for replacement and spare boats, and legislative support for that is critical. If it doesn’t get funded then this will continue to get worse.
Thanks Jim. I missed that this was scheduled maintenance.