SEATTLE – Detailed safety inspections have been ordered for four Washington State ferries with leaking hulls that were launched when Calvin Coolidge was president.
Washington State Ferries on Tuesday announced it is evaluating its 80-year-old Steel Electric-class ferries, the Klickitat, Illahee, Nisqually and Quinault.
The ferries serve runs on Whidbey Island and in the San Juans.
The move came after a June 26 letter from the U.S. Coast Guard demanding changes in how the ferries are inspected and maintained.
The water-tight integrity of the ferries’ hulls has “been compromised repeatedly” over the past year because of the corrosive effects of salt water on aging steel, wrote J.D. Dwyer, chief of the Coast Guard’s inspection division in Seattle.
“These occurrences are serious in nature, and indicate that the current preventive maintenance and inspection schedule is not sufficient for this class of ferry,” he added.
The ferry system has responded with a $2 million plan to meet the Coast Guard’s demands.
The in-depth evaluations and possible repairs likely will affect ferry riders during this summer’s tourist season.
There will be shifts in service to accommodate the work, said Marta Coursey, communications director for the ferry system.
The state believes the Steel Electric ferries are safe and they have been approved for operation by the Coast Guard, Coursey said.
“They basically understand what we all know: The boats are 80 years old, and they require more and more maintenance,” she said.
Built in 1927, the Steel Electrics are the oldest ferries operating on salt water in the U.S.
The condition of the vessels has come under increasing scrutiny since March, when a 6-inch crack developed in the Klickitat’s hull. That was one of at least a half-dozen breaches or holes in the ferry’s riveted steel-plate hull over the past 10 years, according to a review of state maintenance records.
Last year, nearly 767,000 passengers rode the Klickitat and other Steel Electric ferries between Keystone Harbor on Whidbey Island and Port Townsend on the Olympic Peninsula.
When the crack was found in the Klickitat’s hull in March, ferry workers closed the breach by welding on a steel plate. Within days, Coast Guard inspectors ordered the vessel pulled from service for more extensive repairs, interrupting ferry service to Port Townsend.
Lt. Cmdr. Josh Reynolds, then assistant chief of Coast Guard inspections in Seattle, told The Herald in a June 22 interview he was convinced the Steel Electrics are safe.
“We do detailed inspections with the most experienced inspectors we have,” Reynolds said. “If there’s anything wrong, we make them fix it.”
The Coast Guard in its June 26 letter to state officials said the normal inspections and structural examinations of the vessels are not sufficient, and “as the continuing trend of hull failures indicates, additional measures are needed.”
Since the Coast Guard’s letter, inspections have been completed on all the Steel Electric ferries except for the Quinault, which has been taken from service, according to a letter from Paul Brodeur, the state’s director of vessel maintenance and preservation.
The Coast Guard has further ordered that the state by Aug. 1 remove any concrete that has been installed within the hulls as ballast, a step that will allow closer inspection of the steel.
The ferry system also was ordered by Aug. 15 to submit for Coast Guard approval a plan that addresses long-term repair and maintenance of the steel hull plating on the ferries, including identification of hull sections with problems.
Reporter Scott North: 425-339-3431 or north@heraldnet.com.
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