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Post by SS San Mateo on Aug 22, 2007 6:33:22 GMT -8
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Post by Barnacle on Aug 22, 2007 6:46:08 GMT -8
How great of a deal does Initiative 695 seem now?
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Post by SS San Mateo on Aug 22, 2007 7:07:11 GMT -8
How great of a deal does Initiative 695 seem now? The less I comment on I-695, the better (for the record, I voted against it). Besides, it was the goold ol' boys down in Oly that eventually reduced the car tabs to $30 (I-695 was eventually declared unconstitutional). |
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Post by Electric Thunderbird on Aug 22, 2007 7:57:20 GMT -8
The State has money. They waste too much of it on other things and cut corners in the wrong places.
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Post by Political Incorrectness on Aug 22, 2007 12:00:18 GMT -8
Right about that one, I wonder when some people will go to capitol hill and tell em enough is enough and we want accountability for our state tax dollars. When something is wrong, money is involved.  |
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Post by SS San Mateo on Aug 28, 2007 19:23:06 GMT -8
The Rhody is going to be out of service longer than expected. From a service bulletin:
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Post by SS Shasta on Aug 28, 2007 20:04:31 GMT -8
The State has money. They waste too much of it on other things and cut corners in the wrong places. We cannot blame all of these issues on the fact that the Rhody is 60 years old or the Steel Electrics are 80 years old. For years, WSF was too austere in maintaining these fine vessels. A review of the annual maintenance budget for the Steel Electrics, Rhody, MV Hiyu, MV Evergreen State, etc. will document this. Why was the COI allowed to expire on MV Hiyu and MV Nisqually? Why did it take more than a year to repair MV Elwha? Now it is time to catch up with some maintenance that should have been done on a on going basis. |
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Post by Barnacle on Aug 29, 2007 6:23:27 GMT -8
We cannot blame all of these issues on the fact that the Rhody is 60 years old or the Steel Electrics are 80 years old. For years, WSF was too austere in maintaining these fine vessels. A review of the annual maintenance budget for the Steel Electrics, Rhody, MV Hiyu, MV Evergreen State, etc. will document this. Why was the COI allowed to expire on MV Hiyu and MV Nisqually? Why did it take more than a year to repair MV Elwha? Now it is time to catch up with some maintenance that should have been done on a on going basis. Besides the metal fatigue in an 80-year-old hull, what other issues are we discussing here? That's due to age. The actual failure may be more weather-related, but the underlying cause is still the fact that the boats are old. These vessels were "fine" 40 years ago; now they're antique liabilities. And although the COIs of the Hiyu and Nisqually aren't strictly germaine to this thread, they were allowed to expire because of Mike Thorne's edict to "cut the budget" by any means possible. The Hiyu was allowed to expire because of its size and the Nisqually was allowed to expire because of its unreliability. The Nisqually is back on line again, but only after an ungodly amount of money has been poured into it. (THe Hiyu was still in pretty good shape.) And now WSF is faced with putting an ungodly amount of money into the other three relics, too. The Elwha's length of repair isn't at all germaine to this thread, but the reason it took so long to perform is that the rebuilt drive motor was damaged in shipping from the vendor and it had to be rebuilt again. Furthering the problems was that the bid process for the new propulsion control system had to be let a second time. Had either of these things not occurred, the boat would've been back on line in February. |
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Post by Political Incorrectness on Aug 29, 2007 7:16:07 GMT -8
Seriously, why hold onto the relic's when we know they won't last forever? I am right now thinking the CG should pull them this fall and then when Port Townsend to Keystone residents start complaining, then we will say. "You wanted no new vessels, but you knew these old vessels could go at anytime, so here we are!"
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Post by zman on Sept 7, 2007 7:23:56 GMT -8
The USCG has been making alot of exceptions...It is time that WSF either gets some new boats built real quick, or gets two of the SEs up to code real quick. They need to stop repairing what is visibly wrong and repair EVERYTHING that is wrong. It may take some research, but if they can fix all the full issues in at least one of the SEs, they will probably see it last longer without issues.
Or, stop letting shipyards screw things up, and get the government involved in replacing the "dangerous" boats.
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Post by EGfleet on Sept 7, 2007 7:52:51 GMT -8
The USCG has been making alot of exceptions...It is time that WSF either gets some new boats built real quick, or gets two of the SEs up to code real quick. They need to stop repairing what is visibly wrong and repair EVERYTHING that is wrong. It may take some research, but if they can fix all the full issues in at least one of the SEs, they will probably see it last longer without issues. Or, stop letting shipyards screw things up, and get the government involved in replacing the "dangerous" boats. Well, that is the problem...the Steel Electrics can't be brought up to code. They've not been up to code for fifty some years. You can do all the repair work you want and you'll still have boats that will not meet current CG regulations--short of cutting them off at the superstructure and putting them on new hulls. New boats are the only remedy for the situation. And that's going to be at least two to three years away--assuming the legislature kicks down with the $$$ to build new boats. |
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Post by Barnacle on Sept 7, 2007 15:40:15 GMT -8
What he said, other than I'm not sure the superstructures would be up to snuff any more either--basically we'd have to jack up the smokestacks and slide a new boat under it. I honestly believe it would cost MORE to bring those boats "up to current code" than it would to construct replacements. Mind you, if anyone stopped to consider how little of the original boat is left in most cases... |
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Post by SS San Mateo on Sept 10, 2007 8:21:58 GMT -8
Even if they did make the necessary modification to bring the vessels up to code, the vessels would still be deficient in other areas, mainly: - Insufficient overhead clearance
- Narrow lanes (especially the truck unfriendly center tunnel)
- Car deck not deisigned for heavy trucks
- Loss of capacity due to the elevator and pathways (which cross 3 lanes on each side) for the evacuation chutes
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Post by Barnacle on Sept 11, 2007 17:54:43 GMT -8
Yes. In short, give up.
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