SEATTLE — On a damp, noisy dock at Todd Pacific Shipyards, delicate surgery is under way on an 80-year-old patient.
Crews are cutting out corroded 1927-vintage riveted steel plates still found deep inside the ferry Quinault. Bit by bit, the moribund metal is being tossed into waste bins, and new hull steel is being welded into its place.
The $4 million operation, if successful, will completely replace the ailing ferry’s keel, Steve Welch, chief executive officer at Todd Shipyards, said Monday.
Because the keel is the backbone of a ship, the work has to be done with great care, said Ron Wholfrom, project engineer with Washington State Ferries. Crews are moving along the bottom of the 256-foot long vessel, replacing metal piece by piece.
Washington State Ferries officials are hopeful the Quinault will by February be again ready to serve on the challenging route between Keystone on Whidbey Island and Port Townsend on the Olympic Peninsula. They are hopeful similar repairs can be accomplished on the same timetable for the Quinault’s sister ferry, the Illahee.
Ferry officials are banking on the repairs buying enough time to build replacements for its Steel Electric-class vessels, the nation’s oldest ferries operating on salt water.
“These ferries are older than the average ferries that you see,” said John Dwyer, chief of the Coast Guard’s inspection division in Seattle. As he toured the shipyard Monday, Dwyer said ferry officials are reacting appropriately to concerns about the aging Steel Electrics.
Corrosion problems on the Quinault on Nov. 20 prompted state Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond to order all four of the state’s Steel Electric-class ferries tied up to undergo inspection and repairs.
The decision, on the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday traffic rush, forced the ferry system to close down the Keystone-to-Port Townsend run. It has since reopened for passenger-only service, although that has been spotty during recent storms.
Todd crews are working seven days a week to make the repairs, said Ken LeRoy, project manager at the shipyard. They understand the urgency and are working as fast as they can, he said.
On Monday, the Quinault loomed large in dry dock, the graceful arch of its old hull filling the sky like an cathedral turned upside down.
Open spaces where the hull plating had been removed allowed the steel frame beneath to poke through like exposed ribs. In numerous places, the Quinault showed its age, from the corrosion “pits” visible in discarded steel plate, to the “ring welds” surrounding places on the hull where metal rivets, soaking for 80 years in salt water, have over time simply lost their heads.
None of the Steel Electrics meet federal safety regulations, in place since the 1950s, that are designed to keep vessels stable and afloat even during serious hull flooding. The aging ferries have this year been the focus of increasing scrutiny by the Coast Guard after a series of cracks and leaks.
The ferry system already has spent roughly $4 million on repairs so far this year. That includes hull inspections that cost $43,000 a vessel and led ferry officials on Oct. 30 to conclude the Steel Electrics were generally in good condition.
Paul Brodeur, director of vessel maintenance and preservation for Washington State Ferries, on Monday said he reached that conclusion based on the data available at the time.
He said he came to believe otherwise after engineering crews on the Quinault — the people who work below decks — presented him with new information based on inspections they began performing in mid-October.
The work was suggested by Quinault staff chief engineer John Bailey, a Port Townsend resident with more than 20 years service in the ferry system. Under Bailey’s leadership, crews this fall began searching for potential corrosion problems in hard-to-reach places deep in the hull, including under pumps and other equipment, Brodeur said. The work was done while the Quinault was in dry dock, undergoing replacement of 80-year-old stern tubes.
The more paint crews scraped, the more corrosion they found, Brodeur said. Spot checks in similar places in the Quinault’s sister vessels, the Klickitat, Illahee and Nisqually, have led ferry officials to suspect similar problems exist there, too.
Brodeur said Hammond made the right decision in tying up the Steel Electrics.
“We were taking chances … That’s not what we do,” he said.
The push is now on to provide state lawmakers with options for replacing the old ferries.
Ferry officials hope to have a draft of their report on new vessels ready soon, perhaps by late this week, said Traci Brewer-Rogstad, deputy executive director for the ferry system.
A number of ideas are being explored, including a proposal by Nichols Bros. Boat Builders Inc. to construct three 54-car ferries. The vessels would be similar to a boat the Whidbey Island shipbuilder delivered early this year to Pierce County for use in its ferry system. Nichols Bros., which sought bankruptcy protection last month in the face of a messy contract lawsuit, is hopeful the ferry work could lead to the shipyard reopening swiftly.
The Nichols proposal “is an absolute real possibility,” Brewer-Rogstad said of the Nichols Bros.’ proposal.
She also said that ferry officials are doing their best to balance urgency with prudence in evaluating all options.
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