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Post by compdude787 on Feb 10, 2024 20:59:44 GMT -8
Interesting to see the Spokane divert en route to Edmonds, to Coleman Dock tonight to allow for traffic to offload while the Edmonds Terminal was closed. Feel like that's happened a couple times lately... Why was the Edmonds terminal closed?
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Post by Olympic Ferries on Feb 11, 2024 16:31:42 GMT -8
Interesting to see the Spokane divert en route to Edmonds, to Coleman Dock tonight to allow for traffic to offload while the Edmonds Terminal was closed. Feel like that's happened a couple times lately... Why was the Edmonds terminal closed? Hydraulic ramp failure
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Post by Blue Bus Fan on Feb 29, 2024 20:12:25 GMT -8
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Post by Olympic Ferries on Mar 2, 2024 11:10:19 GMT -8
Emptiest I've seen Eagle Harbor today ~ only two retired ships... Elwha and Klahowya. Nothin' else. Kinda depressing unfortunately
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Post by lavalamp on Mar 2, 2024 19:56:53 GMT -8
It didn’t last long. Chimacum swapped with Tacoma this afternoon, so now Tacoma is in Eagle Harbor. Interesting to have two Olympics at Seattle/Bainbridge. Possibly the first time the route hasn’t had a Jumbo or MkII present since the 1970s?
Strange to think that WSF has six vessels out of service but only one in Eagle Harbor.
Wenatchee, Kitsap, and Chelan are at Vigor Puyallup is at DCI Salish is at Everett Ship Repair Tacoma is at Eagle Harbor
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Post by Olympic Ferries on Mar 2, 2024 20:32:13 GMT -8
It didn’t last long. Chimacum swapped with Tacoma this afternoon, so now Tacoma is in Eagle Harbor. Interesting to have two Olympics at Seattle/Bainbridge. Possibly the first time the route hasn’t had a Jumbo or MkII present since the 1970s? Strange to think that WSF has six vessels out of service but only one in Eagle Harbor. Wenatchee, Kitsap, and Chelan are at Vigor Puyallup is at DCI Salish is at Everett Ship Repair Tacoma is at Eagle Harbor Was hoping to catch Chimacum there today, but took it back on the route in 2019 so no biggie. They were delayed swapping due to an extended sea trial order combined with necessary fueling.
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Post by Olympic Ferries on Mar 23, 2024 14:25:02 GMT -8
Definitely quite a bit confused as to the Spring A/SJ assignments starting tomorrow ~ not exactly what I was expecting to see and not ideal whatsoever for Orcas.
~ no schedule changes of note from last spring ~
For the rest of March and all of April, Sealth A1, Samish A2, Suquamish A3 and Tillikum A4. (assignments return to CHE YAK SAM TIL in May)
Orcas kinda gets the short end of the stick here with 4 of their 6 regular sailings being operated by the Sealth vs Chelan, so might not hold up great on Fridays. And confused as to why Samish isn't assigned to A3 like usual (that's where I assume their Spring engine crew always is) so if anyone has any other insight on that one, that would be great. (unsurprising, looking at most Fridays, all the Orcas sailings on Sealth in the PM are full so far)
Would've been much better to see Sealth and Suquamish swapped in this situation, allowing for more Orcas capacity and the FH/Lopez sailings still being supplemented by 1 144-car but oh well this time around.
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Post by Kahloke on Mar 23, 2024 18:03:45 GMT -8
Would've been much better to see Sealth and Suquamish swapped in this situation, allowing for more Orcas capacity and the FH/Lopez sailings still being supplemented by 1 144-car but oh well this time around. I agree. Suquamish or Samish should be running in the #1 position and Sealth in the #3 position. I'm sure WSF has its reasons for doing it this way, but it really does screw Orcas for the first sailing of the day and the evening sailings. Ultimately, the spring and fall schedules need to be re-written, but that is a much larger undertaking.
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Post by Olympic Ferries on Mar 24, 2024 6:01:14 GMT -8
Would've been much better to see Sealth and Suquamish swapped in this situation, allowing for more Orcas capacity and the FH/Lopez sailings still being supplemented by 1 144-car but oh well this time around. I agree. Suquamish or Samish should be running in the #1 position and Sealth in the #3 position. I'm sure WSF has its reasons for doing it this way, but it really does screw Orcas for the first sailing of the day and the evening sailings. Ultimately, the spring and fall schedules need to be re-written, but that is a much larger undertaking. Appears all other indications that this would still be happening, even asking them directly, appear to have been proved wrong. Today, Samish and Suquamish take A1 and A2, while Sealth heads into A3 where it should be. Guess somebody finally figured that one out....
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Post by lavalamp on Mar 24, 2024 9:18:55 GMT -8
Appears all other indications that this would still be happening, even asking them directly, appear to have been proved wrong. Today, Samish and Suquamish take A1 and A2, while Sealth heads into A3 where it should be. Guess somebody finally figured that one out.... WSF management has been planning this lineup for weeks, the vessel assignments were available at time of crew bidding but weren’t emphasized or communicated well. So a lot of crew just bid as normal, not realizing the vessel assignments in March and April would look weird. Give management some credit. They’re paying attention and are making decisions, even if they don’t always seem logical. That makes sense since management has up to date information about vessel availability, crewing, ridership, etc. that we the general public don’t, and that most of the staff at the terminals and crew on the boats don’t either. Management is getting better with some new people in place, but it’s still not good enough yet, especially the communication.
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Post by Olympic Ferries on Mar 31, 2024 19:28:43 GMT -8
I recently compiled the current WSF schedule drafts for the Anacortes/SJI winter schedule from the most recent SJI Force meeting into a document for access w/o having watched the video which can be viewed at the following: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1m-x8fbKaJb4AblQ_LUhoKRuWONTkh70mOFv-o_G0TAw/edit?usp=sharingPretty cool to see some of these changes and listen to people talk about them. Two drafts were presented for each the weekday and weekend services with them being slightly different from each other, with the same goals of trying to retain current capacity to and from Anacortes. Something pretty significant that they have finally implemented is realistic crossing times into the schedules. 5-10 minutes have been added to basically every sailing, with Ana-FH directs now clocking at 75 minutes vs previous 65, and Ana-Orcas directs now at 60 minutes versus the previous 50, so on. Very cool, check it out and the video is on their website if you wanna go check out the locals comments. Appeared that some of the biggest voices here spoke out against the weekend proposals leaving some rather large service gaps EB from Shaw and Lopez, so that was very clearly a priority for revisions. Super curious to see how some of these change as commenting continues. The document I posted is littered with the comments I noticed throughout the video and a couple of my own observations as well so hopefully that clarifies any confusion there. One final point that I did also want to bring back from one of the earlier meetings here is that the summer and new shoulder (combo spring/fall schedule) are being written for domestic traffic only. No consideration to the integration of international sailings to Sidney has been considered here, and I imagine that there will (very likely) need to be new changes made to the "new" schedules again to implement that again in the future, when possible. (I plan to add the upcoming drafts to that same document, the shoulder and summer seasons, respectively) Enjoy!
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Post by Olympic Ferries on Apr 4, 2024 17:39:55 GMT -8
I added the revised Winter schedule drafts and the Spring/Fall Shoulder Season draft to the document linked above from the SJI Schedule Force meeting last night. Check it out, the S/F schedule is actually quite interesting and addresses most of the outlining issues I have seen except for a few. Very interesting... Curious to see how the feedback continues to come in.
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Post by Kahloke on Apr 4, 2024 18:48:15 GMT -8
Wow! Not sure how I missed your posts, but thanks for doing it. It's interesting to see the schedule modifications. I haven't looked at them in depth, but it does appear to be an improvement over the current schedules. I'm curious when they plan on releasing the new schedules.
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Post by Olympic Ferries on Apr 4, 2024 19:04:01 GMT -8
Wow! Not sure how I missed your posts, but thanks for doing it. It's interesting to see the schedule modifications. I haven't looked at them in depth, but it does appear to be an improvement over the current schedules. I'm curious when they plan on releasing the new schedules. Full implementation (I believe?) is required by Winter 2025. So next year, we'll be running on the new schedules. Public comment on the Winter ones specifically will be out this month so that will be finalized. (also, there are two Winter Weekend drafts in the latest addition A-2 and B-2, while there is only one weekday option moving forward for the most part, the B option, so that is why there isn't an A-2, B-2 draft for the weekdays!) I agree that there are some interesting, well-needed changes being implemented here and that is really great progress. Something I really like is that there is active participation of a variety of voices during the WSF presentations on all sorts of needs form the community, so that is just awesome. I will be going to these meetings to keep everybody posted, updating that spreadsheet as needed. Happy to continue sharing as this process continues. The document should be allowing commenting so if there is anything you're curious about, can share there. Would be cool to kinda interact that way. Enjoy!
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Post by Olympic Ferries on Apr 5, 2024 10:03:48 GMT -8
Kittitas was there, for sure, as my photo from July of 1991 illustrates. And, she had her upper deck by then, so she would have been classified as an "Issaquah-130" at that point in her career, a vehicle capacity number that would be later amended to 124. I would expect she served alongside the San Juan regulars at that time: Elwha, Kaleetan, Evergreen, and Nisqually? I'm sure our resident experts, Barnacle, and/or EGFleet, have a better record of which vessels were in the San Juans vs. my feeble memory. Kittitas at Anacortes, July 1991 Kittitas was for sure there for a couple of summers in the early 1990s. Elwha was in and out ... for her extensive 1990 rebuilding. Kaleetan covered Sidney in the summers when Elwha wasn't available ( photos here). Tillikum was also present before her 1994 rebuild and post-rebuild assignment to FVS. Nisqually was the inter-island vessel. Kittitas was also there in 2018 running interisland in place of the Tillikum as well. Super cool to do!
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Post by Barnacle on Apr 6, 2024 10:44:48 GMT -8
I recently compiled the current WSF schedule drafts for the Anacortes/SJI winter schedule from the most recent SJI Force meeting into a document for access w/o having watched the video which can be viewed at the following: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1m-x8fbKaJb4AblQ_LUhoKRuWONTkh70mOFv-o_G0TAw/edit?usp=sharingPretty cool to see some of these changes and listen to people talk about them. Two drafts were presented for each the weekday and weekend services with them being slightly different from each other, with the same goals of trying to retain current capacity to and from Anacortes. Something pretty significant that they have finally implemented is realistic crossing times into the schedules. 5-10 minutes have been added to basically every sailing, with Ana-FH directs now clocking at 75 minutes vs previous 65, and Ana-Orcas directs now at 60 minutes versus the previous 50, so on. Very cool, check it out and the video is on their website if you wanna go check out the locals comments. Appeared that some of the biggest voices here spoke out against the weekend proposals leaving some rather large service gaps EB from Shaw and Lopez, so that was very clearly a priority for revisions. Super curious to see how some of these change as commenting continues. The document I posted is littered with the comments I noticed throughout the video and a couple of my own observations as well so hopefully that clarifies any confusion there. One final point that I did also want to bring back from one of the earlier meetings here is that the summer and new shoulder (combo spring/fall schedule) are being written for domestic traffic only. No consideration to the integration of international sailings to Sidney has been considered here, and I imagine that there will (very likely) need to be new changes made to the "new" schedules again to implement that again in the future, when possible. (I plan to add the upcoming drafts to that same document, the shoulder and summer seasons, respectively) Enjoy! "Realistic crossing times" has been an issue for decades. I'm delighted to see the elongation... unfortunately it means dropping a sailing or two to get the breathing room, but with better crossing times being built into the schedule, it should result in better on-time performance....... hope hope hope!
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Post by Olympic Ferries on Apr 6, 2024 16:30:29 GMT -8
I recently compiled the current WSF schedule drafts for the Anacortes/SJI winter schedule from the most recent SJI Force meeting into a document for access w/o having watched the video which can be viewed at the following: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1m-x8fbKaJb4AblQ_LUhoKRuWONTkh70mOFv-o_G0TAw/edit?usp=sharingPretty cool to see some of these changes and listen to people talk about them. Two drafts were presented for each the weekday and weekend services with them being slightly different from each other, with the same goals of trying to retain current capacity to and from Anacortes. Something pretty significant that they have finally implemented is realistic crossing times into the schedules. 5-10 minutes have been added to basically every sailing, with Ana-FH directs now clocking at 75 minutes vs previous 65, and Ana-Orcas directs now at 60 minutes versus the previous 50, so on. Very cool, check it out and the video is on their website if you wanna go check out the locals comments. Appeared that some of the biggest voices here spoke out against the weekend proposals leaving some rather large service gaps EB from Shaw and Lopez, so that was very clearly a priority for revisions. Super curious to see how some of these change as commenting continues. The document I posted is littered with the comments I noticed throughout the video and a couple of my own observations as well so hopefully that clarifies any confusion there. One final point that I did also want to bring back from one of the earlier meetings here is that the summer and new shoulder (combo spring/fall schedule) are being written for domestic traffic only. No consideration to the integration of international sailings to Sidney has been considered here, and I imagine that there will (very likely) need to be new changes made to the "new" schedules again to implement that again in the future, when possible. (I plan to add the upcoming drafts to that same document, the shoulder and summer seasons, respectively) Enjoy! "Realistic crossing times" has been an issue for decades. I'm delighted to see the elongation... unfortunately it means dropping a sailing or two to get the breathing room, but with better crossing times being built into the schedule, it should result in better on-time performance....... hope hope hope! Nice to have also heard their interest in suggesting training FH crew to load double lane at all times when its busy, which will also be a welcome change. FH turnaround times are also consistently longer, especially in the spring, which has also been needed for ages.
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Post by Barnacle on Apr 8, 2024 20:32:55 GMT -8
"Realistic crossing times" has been an issue for decades. I'm delighted to see the elongation... unfortunately it means dropping a sailing or two to get the breathing room, but with better crossing times being built into the schedule, it should result in better on-time performance....... hope hope hope! Nice to have also heard their interest in suggesting training FH crew to load double lane at all times when its busy, which will also be a welcome change. FH turnaround times are also consistently longer, especially in the spring, which has also been needed for ages. The holding lot will have to get stacked differently to make two-lane loading effective... having overheight/overlength traffic scattered in the lot interrupts double-lane flow. The best solution I've come up with so far is to make every third lane tall/long to it's 20 cars, then 10 talls, spreading the flow of traffic around the boat so that pretty much everyone is parking someone at the same time, but the lot's kind of tight to thread a semi into lane 3 between full lanes 2 and 4. Not to mention the perception of someone arriving later and getting loaded earlier tending to light torches and spawn pitchforks.
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Post by Olympic Ferries on Apr 10, 2024 15:06:26 GMT -8
Summer 2024 schedule was released today for Anacortes, and immediately noticed one large change that will be super helpful this summer. The previous 1845 ANA LOP only (daily exTueWed) will now continue to Orcas, allowing for a 2015 ORI 2045 LOP ANA (daily exTueWed) which delays the #3 from 2100 L/S/O to 2150 on Thursday thru Monday. On Tuesday/Wednesday, the LOP SHI ORI remains at 2100. ** Schedule notation indicates that this new 1845 ANA LOP ORI sailing will prioritize Lopez Island *standby* vehicles over Orcas standbys -> they suggest taking the existing 1925 sailing** ** Lopez still retains two dedicated sailings in each direction daily, leaving ANA at 0940 and 1715, leaving LOP at 1050 and 1820. ** Extra summer capacity to Orcas will be welcomed on the Lopez sailing that's typically underutilized in both directions on most days so that's great to see! I do imagine that the eastbound allotment on that new sailing will be mostly dedicated to Lopez, since there is a 2050 ORC ANA right after the new 2015 sailing. Will need to wait and see on that. In exchange for the extra Orcas sailing added at 1845, the #4 vessels Friday only 2300 from ANA is now LOP FRH only, dropping the stop at Orcas Island, allowing them to return to FRH nearly 40 minutes earlier. The 1135 FRH interisland departure also switches to the current Spring/Fall pattern, stopping at Shaw first, then Orcas and Lopez, versus going to Orcas, Shaw then Lopez. (as a result of this, the midday Orcas departure at 1205 is now at 1220 & Shaw at 1240 instead of 1225) Reservation release is 4/16 1000 as scheduled, summer will also see only 75% of vessels reserved, with 25% released at the 2-month-week-day before interval. Happy sailing everybody.
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Post by Kahloke on Apr 11, 2024 7:13:40 GMT -8
Summer 2024 schedule was released today for Anacortes, and immediately noticed one large change that will be super helpful this summer. The previous 1845 ANA LOP only (daily exTueWed) will now continue to Orcas, allowing for a 2015 ORI 2045 LOP ANA (daily exTueWed) which delays the #3 from 2100 L/S/O to 2150 on Thursday thru Monday. On Tuesday/Wednesday, the LOP SHI ORI remains at 2100. ** Schedule notation indicates that this new 1845 ANA LOP ORI sailing will prioritize Lopez Island *standby* vehicles over Orcas standbys -> they suggest taking the existing 1925 sailing** ** Lopez still retains two dedicated sailings in each direction daily, leaving ANA at 0940 and 1715, leaving LOP at 1050 and 1820. ** Extra summer capacity to Orcas will be welcomed on the Lopez sailing that's typically underutilized in both directions on most days so that's great to see! I do imagine that the eastbound allotment on that new sailing will be mostly dedicated to Lopez, since there is a 2050 ORC ANA right after the new 2015 sailing. Will need to wait and see on that. In exchange for the extra Orcas sailing added at 1845, the #4 vessels Friday only 2300 from ANA is now LOP FRH only, dropping the stop at Orcas Island, allowing them to return to FRH nearly 40 minutes earlier. The 1135 FRH interisland departure also switches to the current Spring/Fall pattern, stopping at Shaw first, then Orcas and Lopez, versus going to Orcas, Shaw then Lopez. (as a result of this, the midday Orcas departure at 1205 is now at 1220 & Shaw at 1240 instead of 1225) Reservation release is 4/16 1000 as scheduled, summer will also see only 75% of vessels reserved, with 25% released at the 2-month-week-day before interval. Happy sailing everybody. Curious change regarding the 18:45 sailing continuing on to Orcas, essentially having 2 boats going to Orcas within 40 minutes of each other. As you stated, the 18:45 Lopez only sailing we saw in previous summers was under-utilized, so maybe there is some logic here. It does underscore the need to completely re-write the schedule, as they've been doing for the fall/spring and winter schedules. I expect the drafts for a new summer schedule starting in 2025 will be coming out soon?
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Post by Olympic Ferries on Apr 11, 2024 8:08:44 GMT -8
Summer 2024 schedule was released today for Anacortes, and immediately noticed one large change that will be super helpful this summer. The previous 1845 ANA LOP only (daily exTueWed) will now continue to Orcas, allowing for a 2015 ORI 2045 LOP ANA (daily exTueWed) which delays the #3 from 2100 L/S/O to 2150 on Thursday thru Monday. On Tuesday/Wednesday, the LOP SHI ORI remains at 2100. ** Schedule notation indicates that this new 1845 ANA LOP ORI sailing will prioritize Lopez Island *standby* vehicles over Orcas standbys -> they suggest taking the existing 1925 sailing** ** Lopez still retains two dedicated sailings in each direction daily, leaving ANA at 0940 and 1715, leaving LOP at 1050 and 1820. ** Extra summer capacity to Orcas will be welcomed on the Lopez sailing that's typically underutilized in both directions on most days so that's great to see! I do imagine that the eastbound allotment on that new sailing will be mostly dedicated to Lopez, since there is a 2050 ORC ANA right after the new 2015 sailing. Will need to wait and see on that. In exchange for the extra Orcas sailing added at 1845, the #4 vessels Friday only 2300 from ANA is now LOP FRH only, dropping the stop at Orcas Island, allowing them to return to FRH nearly 40 minutes earlier. The 1135 FRH interisland departure also switches to the current Spring/Fall pattern, stopping at Shaw first, then Orcas and Lopez, versus going to Orcas, Shaw then Lopez. (as a result of this, the midday Orcas departure at 1205 is now at 1220 & Shaw at 1240 instead of 1225) Reservation release is 4/16 1000 as scheduled, summer will also see only 75% of vessels reserved, with 25% released at the 2-month-week-day before interval. Happy sailing everybody. Curious change regarding the 18:45 sailing continuing on to Orcas, essentially having 2 boats going to Orcas within 40 minutes of each other. As you stated, the 18:45 Lopez only sailing we saw in previous summers was under-utilized, so maybe there is some logic here. It does underscore the need to completely re-write the schedule, as they've been doing for the fall/spring and winter schedules. I expect the drafts for a new summer schedule starting in 2025 will be coming out soon? Summer Drafts should be out either during the upcoming meetings on 4/23-24 or during the separate SJI Schedule meeting on May 1st. Will report back here with more info once I have it! Standby for more info there. Totally understand the desire to use the capacity as much as possible here on the #3s B deck crew, especially since two of the 7 days of the week they just don't use that time on a sailing at all (which I only half understand since they fuel the (typically) Samish on Tuesday, and Wednesday is likely just a low demand day, so they don't crew either day for the 1845). In the eastbound direction, it is also nice to see additional Orcas-Lopez interisland capacity in the evening between the 1820 and 2250, with the new sailing at 2015, so likely some logic mixed in with a fix that will hold things over thru new schedule releases next year.
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Post by Olympic Ferries on Apr 16, 2024 10:57:55 GMT -8
Reservations for summer released 2 hours ago... Just checked the virtual waiting room they implemented, and there's literally 7,000 people in the queue ahead of me.... Absolutely yikes!!
"Your estimate time to enter the website is more than an hour"
Vessel Assignments for the Summer~ A1 - Samish A2 - Yakima A3 - Chelan A4 - Tillikum
Smart move having Samish be the primary Friday Harbor ship, but don't recall if they switched Yakima for Samish last summer or if this is new...
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Post by lavalamp on Apr 16, 2024 19:47:32 GMT -8
Those are the “standard” summer vessel assignments. Last summer was different because Yakima and Kaleetan were both there most of the time, and the Supers require a 2nd mate; the Olympics and Issaquahs don’t. That’s why Samish ran #3 when it returned last summer (Chelan went to #4 for Tillikum), they had to keep the Supers 1-2 since those crews had a 2nd mate.
That’s also why you saw Suquamish switch from #2 to #1 yesterday when Yakima returned instead of Yakima swapping directly for Samish as #1.
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Post by Olympic Ferries on Apr 17, 2024 5:54:29 GMT -8
Those are the “standard” summer vessel assignments. Last summer was different because Yakima and Kaleetan were both there most of the time, and the Supers require a 2nd mate; the Olympics and Issaquahs don’t. That’s why Samish ran #3 when it returned last summer (Chelan went to #4 for Tillikum), they had to keep the Supers 1-2 since those crews had a 2nd mate. That’s also why you saw Suquamish switch from #2 to #1 yesterday when Yakima returned instead of Yakima swapping directly for Samish as #1. Well that first part I understand, but not the 2nd. The Yakima always crews to #2 in the spring and fall during normal circumstances~ I was not expecting them to take to position number 1 whatsoever.
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