SEATTLE — Washington’s ferry system hit a low point over the weekend as yet another boat had to be taken out of service, leaving the fleet with just 14 working ships out of 21 owned by the state.
As Monday arrived, agency officials continued their struggle to piece together workable schedules on every route, a challenge they’ll likely wrestle with through the week and beyond.
The Chimacum ferry, among Washington State Ferries’ newer boats, was docked Saturday morning after a rod broke in one of its engines, said spokesperson Ian Sterling. The Chimacum was the sole vessel sailing between Seattle and Bremerton due to previous service cuts; when it broke down Saturday, the route briefly had no service between the two cities.
To accommodate, WSF moved the Issaquah off the Kingston/Edmonds crossing, reducing that passage to a single boat and restoring crossings to Bremerton on Saturday afternoon.
The damage to the Chimacum is significant enough that the Kingston/Edmonds route will be on reduced service until further notice.
Losing the Chimacum further reduces a deeply strained system. The state’s stable of 21 boats is already considered the minimum; 26 is the goal, which would allow ferries to receive regular and emergency maintenance without reducing service. But a cascade of mechanical failures, coupled with critical maintenance that can’t be deferred and extremely limited dry dock space, means a third of the country’s largest ferry system is out of service.
“I can’t remember ever seeing it this low,” Sterling said.
The Chimacum’s repair timeline is “weeks, not days,” Sterling said. It joins the Walla Walla, which was pulled for emergency propeller repairs and is now likely to be out for longer than expected after crews found metal fatigue in a separate propeller. It also joins the Wenatchee, which is being converted to hybrid-electric power and receiving its midlife upgrades; the Puyallup, which is undergoing critical maintenance that can no longer be deferred; and the Tilikum, a 65-year-old boat due for retirement this year that’s costing $20 million a year to keep in service, among others.
It was a Pyrrhic victory for the ferries that every route had at least some service come Monday morning. The threat of additional breakdowns and crew shortages loom over the ferry system every day.
Compounding the aging fleet is limited dry dock space in Puget Sound. The shipbuilder Vigor has the most slots in its Harbor Island yard, but the company also services military ships. Fixing the Walla Walla is not expected to be complicated, but since it left Vigor’s dry dock, it must wait until there’s an opening to return, Sterling said.
That limited space also means skipping scheduled maintenance is usually not an option.
“If you pass that up, there’s a good chance you’re not getting back in for months,” Sterling said. With the age of these boats, deferring maintenance is likely to lead to worse problems.
There are no shortcuts to fixing the fleet. Simply, the state needs more boats. Just nine of the 21 are in good shape, although the Chimacum was built in 2017, proof that anything can happen to these ferries.
“We need to build boats,” Sterling said. “At the end of the day, that’s the story here.”
The state has set a long-term, $4 billion goal of adding 16 new boats, mostly electric, to the fleet by 2040, while retiring many of those currently in use.
The state Legislature has so far budgeted roughly $1 billion for five new boats, but the timeline for their construction has been pushed back to late 2027. Washington’s longtime partnership with Vigor to build new ferries fell apart in 2022 when the two sides couldn’t agree on liability or price. Vigor’s price, initially estimated to be around $200 million each, could go higher.
Changes in state rules this year mean out-of-state builders can bid on the contracts. The best-case scenario for agency officials and lawmakers is multiple companies simultaneously building boats. Washington State Department of Transportation staff hope to have a builder or builders selected by summer 2024. Meanwhile, WSDOT is looking for more help from the state.
Lawmakers will only pass a supplemental budget in the 2024 legislative session when agencies are generally expected to seek minor or technical changes. But WSF ignored those guidelines, asking for an additional $59 million from the Legislature.
“We didn’t follow the rules,” head of WSF, Patty Rubstello, told staff this month. “We didn’t follow those guidelines. We went big.”
That money would go toward finishing the conversion of the state’s three largest boats to hybrid-electric; the contract to do so, awarded to Vigor this year, came in $30 million higher than expected.
It would also go toward hiring and promoting crew. Crew shortages have caused massive service disruptions as well. In recent months, the ferry system has seen large numbers of workers calling out sick, Sterling said, as the flu, COVID and colds all spread and coming to work sick has become less acceptable.
But, for now, vessel shortages are so severe that crew shortages are rendered moot, Sterling said.
