OLYMPIA — While two of the state’s oldest ferries sat in a shipyard awaiting repair, legislators and ferry executives grappled Thursday with the possibility that at least one of the vessels is beyond hope and must be retired.

The state’s four 80-year-old Steel Electric-class ferries are “nearing the end of their useful life,” but there is no money to replace them, Washington State Ferries Executive Director Mike Anderson told legislators during Senate and House transportation committee meetings.

Results of a hull survey of the ferry Nisqually are due next week. If the results aren’t good, the boat could be retired, Anderson said.

“We have to figure out how much money you should put into an old, old boat like that,” he told lawmakers.

The Steel Electric ferries are the only vessels in the state’s fleet agile enough to navigate the rough water and narrow harbors between Keystone on Whidbey Island and Port Townsend on the Olympic Peninsula. If the ferries fail to meet the Coast Guard’s new, beefed-up safety standards, “there are no viable options to replace the vessels,” Anderson said.

Consequently, there is a risk the route could be closed, officials concede.

Even previously mentioned options such as using passenger-only ferries or borrowing ferries from other communities have been eliminated. Study shows those ideas are impractical or impossible, Anderson said.

If the route between Whidbey Island and Port Townsend is closed, even temporarily, it could dramatically affect the economies there, while adding hours to commute times, officials said.

In order to prevent the route from being shut down, Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, said she may push ferry system officials to redraft recently approved plans for building four new 144-car ferries over the next several years.

She wants the state to instead consider building two ferries that will fit into Keystone Harbor on Whidbey — something only the Steel Electrics can now do. The 144-car ferries the state wants to build are simply too big to serve the route.

“We’re going to do everything we possibly can not to close it,” said Haugen, chairwoman of the Senate Transportation Committee.

She also said she’ll push to keep the state’s Steel Electrics in service. “As long as the Coast Guard says these boats are safe, we’re going to run them,” she said.

The state has wrestled much of the year with a string of hull cracks and other problems on its Steel Electric-class boats. Since March, the state has spent $3.5 million patching leaks, replacing stern tubes and repairing other unanticipated problems, Anderson said.

In March, ferry officials operated the Klickitat for two days with a six-inch crack in the hull. Coast Guard inspectors ordered the boat pulled from service for mandatory repairs after discovering what they described in official reports as a “hazardous/unsafe condition.”

The latest troubles have revolved around corrosion of the stern tubes, the cast-iron pipes that house the ferries’ propeller shafts where they run through the hull. The stern tubes have been in saltwater since 1927, when the Steel Electrics were first launched in California’s San Francisco Bay.

The Coast Guard ordered closer inspection of the stern tubes after a 20-inch crack developed in July in a stern tube on the Illahee. The crack allowed water to stream into the hull at a rate of five gallons per minute. That stern tube, as well as its twin on the other end of the ferry, was deemed too corroded for continued use. Replacements were fabricated and the Illahee returned to service earlier this month in the San Juan Islands.

The same stern tube problem was discovered on the Quinault. Crews at Todd Shipyards in Seattle are attempting repairs.

The Nisqually was pulled from service early this month to undergo inspection mandated by the Coast Guard. Only the Klickitat is now operating between Whidbey Island and Port Townsend.

Rep. Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquaim, majority leader of the House, said she’s growing weary of waiting for state ferry officials to come up with a plan to replace the system’s oldest ferries.

“There’s a lot of pressure to make decisions, especially in light of the four Steel Electrics that seem to be collapsing all at once,” she said. “I’m hopeful they’ll push the decision process along more quickly than they have been. It’s been taking too long.”

State lawmakers in 2001 approved building new ferries and have set aside nearly $350 million to complete the work. At the time the new vessels were authorized, replacing the aging Steel Electrics was the priority. Ferry officials, however, decided to build bigger boats.

Washington State Ferries is preparing a special report that analyzes options for replacing the Steel Electrics. Anderson told legislators he expects to have some preliminary results by January. However, with a tightening budget and a recent state audit that suggests cutting service to save money, new boats are likely years away, lawmakers were told Thursday.

“The Steel Electrics have become an urgent need,” Anderson said. “We’ll have to move it up the priority list, which means something will have to fall.”