|
Post by Electric Thunderbird on Nov 25, 2007 11:55:37 GMT -8
Can't the Rody be used with Keystone?
|
|
|
Post by Political Incorrectness on Nov 25, 2007 12:29:52 GMT -8
*hits head* Why did nobody think of that until now? Then the Hiyu could go down, cheaper solution too. Oh well, we tend to choose the most expensive options.
|
|
|
Post by SS San Mateo on Nov 25, 2007 12:34:19 GMT -8
Can't the Rody be used with Keystone? See reply #14 of this thread for an explantion as to why that's not an option.
|
|
|
Post by hergfest on Nov 25, 2007 20:01:36 GMT -8
If she could be put there, she would already have been there.
|
|
|
Post by Barnacle on Nov 26, 2007 4:34:34 GMT -8
^^ What he said.
|
|
|
Post by SS San Mateo on Nov 26, 2007 11:50:08 GMT -8
The Pierce County ferries aren't an option either. The Steilacoom II can't go more than 1 mile from shore (per COI) and I'm assuming the Chrsitine Anderson has the same (or similar) restriction.
|
|
|
Post by BreannaF on Nov 26, 2007 12:48:27 GMT -8
I suppose there's zero chance of borrowing the Kulshan/Governor back for a while?
No, I didn't think so.
|
|
|
Post by Barnacle on Nov 26, 2007 15:55:34 GMT -8
I believe elsewhere on this forum, In Washington observed that it would not be a good fit.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2007 21:46:12 GMT -8
Looks like someone thinks that a ferry similar to the MV Steilacoom could be built and used on the Port Townsend - Keystone route.....
New Pt. Townsend ferry could be up and running in one year
By Associated Press SEATTLE (AP) - A Puget Sound shipbuilder told state ferry officials on Monday that within a year they could have a new car-carrying vessel plying the Port Townsend-Keystone route, replacing 80-year-old ferries pulled from service last week due to safety concerns.
Matt Nichols, of Nichols Brothers Boat Builders Inc. on Whidbey Island, suggested that the state use the same design that Nichols used to build the 54-car, 325-passenger M/V Steilacoom for Pierce County. It would cost about $20 million for each boat if two or three boats were built.
The state's four oldest vessels were pulled from service last week because of concerns about corrosion on their hulls. The boats, all Steel-Electric class, are the only ferries in the state's fleet that are capable of navigating the narrow, shallow harbor at Keystone, on Whidbey Island - leaving the Keystone-Port Townsend route without car-ferry service.
At the time the boats were pulled from service, only the Klickitat and the Illahee were actually running. The Quinault was taken out of service in July for repairs, and the Nisqually in September for inspection.
A passenger-only ferry, the 350-passenger Snohomish, began running the Keystone route over the weekend, but high winds prevented it from running during rush hour Monday evening. On Tuesday, the Snohomish was to begin running a new schedule to better match up with local bus service.
Late Monday afternoon, representatives of the state Department of Transportation, the Coast Guard, several lawmakers, shipbuilders and Washington State Ferries met to discuss their best options for restoring service to the Keystone route.
One proposal - dubbed the "Frankenferry" plan by critics - called for cutting the superstructure off one of the Steel-Electrics and imposing it upon a newly constructed hull, at a minimum cost of $35 million and a three-year timetable.
That plan faces concerns about its cost and about whether it could meet current design standards.
Nichols' proposal was received more warmly, attendees said.
"There was a lot of discussion to the effect of, we don't have a lot of time, it has to be a reasonable cost - can we get some sort of ship that will meet the needs of the public?" said Traci Brewer-Rogstad, deputy executive director of Washington State Ferries. "The take-away was, let's keep talking and we'll be having discussions with the Legislature about what the best options would be."
Attorney Jed Powell, who represents J.M. Martinac Shipbuilding Corp. of Tacoma, said Nichols' proposal makes the most sense. While the 54-car ferries would not be a long-term solution because they aren't big enough to accommodate growth in ridership, they could be built quickly and affordably, giving Puget Sound shipbuilders time to build bigger, better boats for the future. When that happens, the smaller ferries could be moved onto less-used routes, such as among the San Juan Islands, Powell said.
Nichols is in bankruptcy protection; if it can emerge, it would be able to help build any new boats. Otherwise, the construction could be left to Martinac and Todd Shipyards of Seattle, Powell said. The three are currently collaborating to build four 144-car, 1,500-passenger ferries for the state, and a similar collaboration could work for the 54-car boats, he said.
|
|
|
Post by guest1 on Nov 26, 2007 22:40:45 GMT -8
So far, three proposals but not one good one.
The Martinac proposal has those pods hanging below; sure to get bumped at Keystone.
The "Franken Ferry" just sounds like a dumb idea (but if you make the hulls a little longer and a little wider you could then replace the house.)
The Nichols boat is too small.
|
|
|
Post by chokai on Nov 27, 2007 0:30:05 GMT -8
This article at the PI's site is similar to the AP article posted earlier but with a few new tidbits and qoutes. seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/341207_ferry27.htmlI actually find relative the lack of finger pointing over this whole thing thus far quite interesting. Haugen is probably due for some at some point here though. The Oak Harbor's rep's qoute about concerns with smaller ferries being able to serve the route capacity wise is interesting. Perhaps someone will recognize the folly of having a dock & harbor that only a select number of specially designed boats can serve, regardless of thier age.
|
|
FNS
Voyager
The Empire Builder train of yesteryear in HO scale
Posts: 4,947
|
Post by FNS on Nov 27, 2007 1:08:51 GMT -8
|
|
|
Post by BreannaF on Nov 27, 2007 2:04:47 GMT -8
Ok. $4 million to maybe repair one of the S-E's enough to get it back on the road. Seems like throwing good money in the toilet to me. $20 million to build Christine Anderson's niece. A ferry in a year, but one that may be of limited use in the future. However, if they really can do it for that, it could be much cheaper than any attempts to try to repair the S-E's over the next 3 to 4 years it might take to build proper replacements. Kinda of a small ferry for that run though, huh? $35 million to take a crane and lift the Quinault out of the water and slide a barge under it. Well, not exactly. But that's sort of what I think of that plan. $85.5 million (x4) to build each of 4 proper ferries. Ferries that can be run anywhere in the system as needed. The missing dollar figure: How much to locate and build a proper ferry terminal on Whidbey Island to allow us to not have to do any of the first three choices? It seems that if the number is less than $35 million and could be done in less than a year, then the answer is to go with that option and get right on the original 4 ferries project. Even if the project cost more than that, the current terminal would be surplus property to be sold or to make money some other way. I'm sure that a piece of land with a dock that close t a state park with lots of facilities would be worth something to somebody. Enough even to acquire some other piece of property and develop it as a ferry terminal perhaps?
|
|
|
Post by Barnacle on Nov 27, 2007 7:23:50 GMT -8
Well, I agree with your analysis, Bryan--except for the absence of observation regarding the amount of resistance relocating the terminal would get on Whidbey Island. If we could move that terminal, we could get on with building new boats--and in the mean time, rearrange the maintenance schedule to get an Issaquah-class boat out there, which are the best sea boats we have.
Of course, the flaw in that plan is that we only have one reserve boat of any capacity without the Steel-Electrics in the loop. We'd still have to have at least one operating in the San Juans, the most protected waters.
*sigh* I guess there are no easy answers in this situation. It was ten years in the making; why is anyone expecting to solve it overnight?
|
|
|
Post by Kahloke on Nov 27, 2007 11:56:04 GMT -8
What about the 5th option Martinac has proposed: building 2 new smaller boats with an 80-100 car capacity utilizing Z-Drive technology to allow the vessels to navigate Keystone Harbor? I'm sure officials at WSF have looked at this option, as well, so I'm curious as to how sound (both financially and technologically) the proposal is. Of course, even these new ferries will be at least 3 years out, still leaving us with the problem of what to do until then.
|
|
|
Post by SS Shasta on Nov 27, 2007 12:54:00 GMT -8
Constructing new vessels with a smaller vehicle capacity than the Steel Electrics is just plain nuts! New vessels must be rough weather boats as well.
|
|
|
Post by Barnacle on Nov 27, 2007 21:31:23 GMT -8
Of course it's nuts. I've been saying that all along. But the loudmouth special interest groups on one end or the other don't want any changes, so we're stuck with the existing service until someone actually puts a foot down.
ON THE OTHER HAND...
the 54-car boat would still be larger than the Rhododendron, and could sit in at Tahlequah as well as the Fall-Winter-Spring interisland boat. Plus it would have the 16-foot overhead clearance that vessels on those runs currently lack. So the idea is not without its merits, to say nothing of maintaining a semblance of vehicle service on the PTK run with much newer and stronger vessels than the venerable buckets.
|
|
|
Post by Kahloke on Nov 28, 2007 10:52:58 GMT -8
On my way into work this morning, I saw one of the Steel Electrics (I think it must be the Illahee) being pushed, or at least escorted, by tug from Eagle Harbor to Harbor Island. Let the inspections begin! ;D
|
|
|
Post by Barnacle on Nov 28, 2007 19:20:05 GMT -8
How many places do you think they'll see daylight? ;D
|
|
|
Post by SS San Mateo on Nov 29, 2007 20:06:43 GMT -8
Both are in drydock now.
|
|
|
Post by chokai on Dec 3, 2007 19:53:42 GMT -8
Northwest Cable News is running a little piece on the SE's today including some nice footage of the Quinault in the dry dock and the work being done. The # given was that up to 15% of the hull panels may be replaced. I can't find a link online to the footage but given thier format if you watch long enough it is likely they will run the story again near the bottom of the hour. It may show up online at some point at www.nwcn.com, i'll update this post if I find it.
|
|
|
Post by guest1 on Dec 3, 2007 21:16:09 GMT -8
15% would probably be the remaining riveted hull plate from the '20's. It did damned well, if you conisder that it predated cathodic protection by decades. Bless those who drove and bucked the rivet.
|
|
|
Post by BreannaF on Dec 4, 2007 2:44:00 GMT -8
Northwest Cable News is running a little piece on the SE's today including some nice footage of the Quinault in the dry dock and the work being done. The # given was that up to 15% of the hull panels may be replaced. I just happened upon the story on NWCN while I was watching some late night storm coverage and grading exams..... There was some stock aerial footage of each of the 4 ferries docked at one terminal or another and some footage of the Illahee and the Quinault in the Todd dry dock that obviously wasn't taken in this week's rainy weather. Then there was the guy in a hard hat with what was presumably a piece of steel cut from the hull of one of the boats. Apparently, "pitting in the steel" is a euphemism for "there's three big 'ol holes in that sample there that I could stick my little finger through". But nothing else that we don't already know, I think. But it was nice to see them acknowledge that WSF actually exists on our TV news.
|
|
|
Post by EGfleet on Dec 4, 2007 7:26:00 GMT -8
Examining extent of hull damage
By Sara Jean Green Seattle Times staff reporter Workers at Todd Shipyards return to work Monday on the hull of the Quinault. An earlier inspection showed evidence of deteriorating steel. Washington State Ferries pulled the Quinault from service Nov. 20, as well as the three other Steel Electric ferries, which were built in 1927. Huge steel plates have already been cut from the rusted underbelly of the state ferry Quinault, but shipbuilders working to repair the 80-year-old vessel still don't know how much of its hull has been corroded, pitted and cracked from its years of sailing between Port Townsend and Whidbey Island. Washington State Ferries pulled all four of its Steel Electric ferries from service Nov. 20 after an inspection of the Quinault showed evidence of deteriorating steel. Because of strict U.S. Coast Guard regulations, hull plates must be rewelded or replaced once they've lost 25 percent of their original thickness. The Quinault, and a second ferry, the Illahee, are now in dry dock at Todd Pacific Shipyards on Seattle's Harbor Island. On Monday, the news media were escorted alongside the Quinault for a close-up view of its aging hull. A week after ferry officials canceled car-ferry trips on the Port Townsend-Keystone route, a passenger-only ferry, the Snohomish, began making daily trips between the Olympic Peninsula and Whidbey Island. But there isn't another car ferry in the state's fleet that can navigate Keystone's narrow, shallow harbor. Two shifts of 40 shipbuilders are working seven days a week to replace 10 to 15 percent of the Quinault's steel-hull plates in hopes of returning it to service by February. A second team of Todd employees is closely inspecting the Illahee, blasting away paint to get a better look at the steel below. "It's a discovery process," said Ken LeRoy, a shipyard project manager overseeing the inspection and repair of the Quinault and Illahee. "The extent of it [the damage], we don't know." The state's Steel Electric ferries were all built in 1927; hull plates have been replaced before, possibly in the late 1950s and again in the 1980s, when the four ferries were refurbished and their machinery was renovated. "It's amazing, really, that our engineers have kept them operating in a safe condition for so long," said Traci Brewer-Rogstad, Washington State Ferries' deputy executive director, who attended Monday's media briefing. The decision to pull all four Steel Electric ferries out of service "has been looming over our heads for quite a while," she said. "This just magnifies the situation we're in." Whether the Illahee will be repaired "will depend on what we find," Brewer-Rogstad said.The other Steel Electric ferries are sitting idle, too. Officials have yet to decide if they will repair the Klickitat, which is now "tied up in Port Townsend," Brewer-Rogstad said.There are no plans now to repair the Nisqually, which is at the Washington State Ferries maintenance yard in Eagle Harbor. "We want to do what we can to get a few more years out of the Quinault" while state officials fast-track the purchase of new boats, Brewer-Rogstad said. As for repairing the Illahee, "it will depend on what we find," she said.****** Here's the link so you can see the photos...and it sounds like 3 of the Steel E's may be gone, the way this story reads. seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004051206_ferries04m.html
|
|
|
Post by EGfleet on Dec 4, 2007 7:30:13 GMT -8
And from the Everett Herald...
Crews carefully replace old ferry's keel
The repair work may return the Quinault to service on the Keystone route by February.
By Scott North Herald Writer
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.
|
|