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Post by Name Omitted on Oct 24, 2019 23:16:39 GMT -8
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Post by pacificcat99 on Oct 25, 2019 7:43:48 GMT -8
Sad to hear but I guess that's what happens when the ship has been in service for 56 years and the company (State in this case) runs out of funds to repair their vessels.
The Spalding ships up and down the coast from BC to the Coho to Alaska State ferries all have similar but classic designs that even I as a young person continue to admire every time I see one of these ships on the beautiful coast.
I guess hope still remains that Alaska finds the funds to repair it but I guess it is a very slim one. (Maybe another company can purchase it...)
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Post by Name Omitted on Oct 25, 2019 12:42:03 GMT -8
Fifty years in saltwater really is incredible. It's a testament to Spaulding, those who built, and those who maintain that so many are still in service.
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Post by Blue Bus Fan on Oct 25, 2019 16:07:16 GMT -8
I wonder when Alaska Marine Highway will retired her. I hope that Alaska Marine Highway System can get started on mainline vessels replacement plan.
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Post by Name Omitted on Mar 25, 2021 8:35:41 GMT -8
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Post by pacificcat99 on Mar 25, 2021 11:50:50 GMT -8
As someone who doesn't live in Alaska (Live in BC) it is hard for me to figure out what is happening with the AMH.
Aren't many communities in Alaska still dependent on ferry travel to move people, goods, services? (or has much of it been taken over by air?)
If Ferry travel is an essential service why doesn't the government recognize it and work to try to improve the system/ensure people have the services they need? Also isn't the whole purpose of having a Crown Corporation (Government owned entities) is so that the government still ensures people have the services even if it is not profitable.
Anyways just my two cents as a British Columbian but I hope those of you up in Alaska can get the ferry services required.
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Neil
Voyager
Posts: 7,151
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Post by Neil on Mar 25, 2021 20:16:19 GMT -8
Gawd, this is almost like some dark comedy. A transportation entity providing an essential service, so underfunded and mismanaged that they can't even sell the vessels they really need, and so... they actually consider sinking them. Bottom line, for me; taxation is not evil. Taxation raises funds to pay for infrastructure that helps a society and its commerce function, even in times when the economy is not at its best. Alaskans have made their decisions about that, though, and the current state of AMHS is one of the results, particularly when a right wing Governor can set the agenda.
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Post by Blue Bus Fan on Mar 25, 2021 22:42:54 GMT -8
That not good to hear another mainline vessel getting retired. Can Alaska Marine Highway system function with three mainline vessels?
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Neil
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Posts: 7,151
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Post by Neil on Mar 26, 2021 10:47:37 GMT -8
That not good to hear another mainline vessel getting retired. Can Alaska Marine Highway system function with three mainline vessels? Three? Try one, and a bit. Matanuska is the only full time vessel serving the mainline route this summer, with Kennicott adding very limited service. Le Conte does the small communities and the day service to Skagway.
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Post by Blue Bus Fan on Mar 26, 2021 11:47:58 GMT -8
That not good to hear another mainline vessel getting retired. Can Alaska Marine Highway system function with three mainline vessels? Three? Try one, and a bit. Matanuska is the only full time vessel serving the mainline route this summer, with Kennicott adding very limited service. Le Conte does the small communities and the day service to Skagway. 1. Columbia2. Matanuska 3. KennicottI have heard anything about MV Columbia being retired from the fleet.
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Post by Name Omitted on Mar 26, 2021 14:06:11 GMT -8
I have heard anything about MV Columbia being retired from the fleet. Actually, there is talk of Columbia being the next to go. The Mat just had her overhaul, and Columbia is too big for year-round service. We want a new mainliner to replace her. One about As large as, say, the Malaspina. More later, when I have a keyboard.
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Post by Name Omitted on Mar 26, 2021 17:22:57 GMT -8
As a point of clarification, ALASKANS, through the legislature, elected to protect AMHS funding at pre-Dunleavy levels. Alaskans, in general, understand the overseeing transportation is one of the primary reasons to have a State in the first place. Unfortunately, the governor has a line-item veto and a willingness to sabotage the workings of government. Whether we can get by with just three mainliners, absolutely we can, but not yet. Part of the idea behind the Alaska Class Ferries is that we can do what we need to do while pushing around less steel and using fewer crewmembers to do it. In the long run, that's true. The mainline concept was built when we had much less reliable airline service than we have now, and innovations in ship design mean we can make smaller vessels reliable. If we would ever get the damned ACF vessels in service, we would be able to test the theory. Then, we can build a few with crew quarters, and we can replace our bigger ships with ships that are more tuned to our average passenger loads in a world with better air service. Columbia is too big for anything but the Bellingham route, and then only in the summer. The Kennecott and Matanuska are much more helpful to the system overall. The last long-range plan I read indicates that we will need a new mainliner around the end of this decade, at which point the Columbia will go away. Of course, that was a plan that was written before our governor decided to burn it all to the ground. This is the SOB that waited six weeks to declare a state of emergency when one of our towns lost its water supply. Private volunteers got them potable water before we were allowed to bring in our National Guard's logistical support. Read that last paragraph again. Every time you try and figure out what the hell we're thinking up here, go back and read that previous paragraph. THAT is what we are dealing with in a governor.
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Neil
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Posts: 7,151
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Post by Neil on Mar 26, 2021 22:14:20 GMT -8
Three? Try one, and a bit. Matanuska is the only full time vessel serving the mainline route this summer, with Kennicott adding very limited service. Le Conte does the small communities and the day service to Skagway. 1. Columbia2. Matanuska 3. KennicottI have heard anything about MV Columbia being retired from the fleet. Columbia is not active, now or in the upcoming summer. Kennicott provides minimal mainline service. So, as I said, one vessel, and a bit.
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Post by WettCoast on May 4, 2021 21:54:42 GMT -8
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Post by Name Omitted on Jun 22, 2021 16:34:36 GMT -8
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Neil
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Posts: 7,151
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Post by Neil on Jun 22, 2021 20:18:43 GMT -8
It's really kind of hard to criticise any strategy for disposing of a vessel like the Malaspina, because frankly, there's virtually no market. 58 years old and badly run down, anyone would be nuts to try to operate her. I guess it is kind of unethical to try to pawn the old girl off to a third world country where standards are much lower. BC Ferries has been trying for five years to either sell the Queen of Burnaby or have her towed to the scrappers. Big old car ferries are pretty much a dead loss to dispose of.
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Post by Name Omitted on Jun 22, 2021 22:55:07 GMT -8
It's really kind of hard to criticise any strategy for disposing of a vessel like the Malaspina, because frankly, there's virtually no market. I respectfully disagree. I agree that there is limited viable options, but she is an asset of the state and there are established State protocols for disposing of assets. Not one of those protocols includes the governor having the authority to give the assets away, seemingly on a whim.
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Neil
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Post by Neil on Jun 23, 2021 8:20:30 GMT -8
It's really kind of hard to criticise any strategy for disposing of a vessel like the Malaspina, because frankly, there's virtually no market. I respectfully disagree. I agree that there is limited viable options, but she is an asset of the state and there are established State protocols for disposing of assets. Not one of those protocols includes the governor having the authority to give the assets away, seemingly on a whim. What I meant, and probably didn't express very well, was that no matter what the strategy, the result in trying to dispose of this vessel would most likely be about the same. You're right about the propriety of the governor's actions, which seem to be in keeping with the state's current attitude toward the ferry system.
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Post by Name Omitted on Jun 23, 2021 14:43:23 GMT -8
I respectfully disagree. I agree that there is limited viable options, but she is an asset of the state and there are established State protocols for disposing of assets. Not one of those protocols includes the governor having the authority to give the assets away, seemingly on a whim. What I meant, and probably didn't express very well, was that no matter what the strategy, the result in trying to dispose of this vessel would most likely be about the same. You're right about the propriety of the governor's actions, which seem to be in keeping with the state's current attitude toward the ferry system. I over-reacted, and I'm sorry. As a State employee, if I disposed of my State computer without going through proper channels, I would be fired, and possibly jailed. Our governor offered a major state asset in a letter with no public notice whatsoever. The only reason we know about it is because as a mater of course, KTOO files a monthly Freedom of Information act request to view correspondence. I am livid, and I over-reacted to your post.
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Neil
Voyager
Posts: 7,151
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Post by Neil on Jun 23, 2021 17:18:51 GMT -8
What I meant, and probably didn't express very well, was that no matter what the strategy, the result in trying to dispose of this vessel would most likely be about the same. You're right about the propriety of the governor's actions, which seem to be in keeping with the state's current attitude toward the ferry system. I over-reacted, and I'm sorry. As a State employee, if I disposed of my State computer without going through proper channels, I would be fired, and possibly jailed. Our governor offered a major state asset in a letter with no public notice whatsoever. The only reason we know about it is because as a mater of course, KTOO files a monthly Freedom of Information act request to view correspondence. I am livid, and I over-reacted to your post. I don't think you over-reacted at all, and if I was an Alaskan with any measure of dependence or even just concern with the state's ferry system, I would be livid as well at pretty much everything that's gone on the last several years.
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Post by Name Omitted on Jun 23, 2021 17:31:20 GMT -8
As someone who doesn't live in Alaska (Live in BC) it is hard for me to figure out what is happening with the AMH. Aren't many communities in Alaska still dependent on ferry travel to move people, goods, services? (or has much of it been taken over by air?) If Ferry travel is an essential service why doesn't the government recognize it and work to try to improve the system/ensure people have the services they need? Also isn't the whole purpose of having a Crown Corporation (Government owned entities) is so that the government still ensures people have the services even if it is not profitable. Anyways just my two cents as a British Columbian but I hope those of you up in Alaska can get the ferry services required. I'm sorry I missed this when it was posted. I think it's important to look at the differences between BC, WA and AK to understand what's going on here. The Seattle area has ferry service. The Vancouver area has ferry service. Anchorage, which has about half our population, does not. Fairbanks, and the Mat-Su, which has about half the remaining population, does not. We also don't have *any* high volume short runs such as your routes out of Point Roberts. We have the Ketchikan to Metlakatla route at 45 minutes, but most of our routes are measured in half-days. Our ships run slower than yours, and their size set by the weather conditions for the runs they do rather than the passenger counts expected on the runs, so they run empty. Even so, our largest ship, Columbia, would be the smallest ship by passenger count in the WA fleet. Imagine, if you will, BC ferries if they did not serve Vancouver, and if their routes looked more like the Prince Rupert to Port Hardy run, but the 50 year old Nothern Adventure only sailed at 16 knots. Now imagine the system could only replace her with a new-build built within the country, because they were bared by law from ships built elsewhere, and no other state has anything approaching the length of routes Alaska has. Finally, our AMHS is nothing approaching a Crown corporation. It's a division of our Department of Transportation, which gets a new head with every new administration. All the revenue form the system goes into the State general fund, and all the expenses for the system are allocated by the Legislature and signed by the Governor. We have no giftshops, no bars, no advertising, no ancillary funding on our AMHS, because all of the cost of maintain such systems would drain from the AMHS, and all the revenue would go to the State. I don't know if ProBoards has filters. If I used the appropriate words to describe this situation, I would find out. Needless to say, the acronym SNFAU would be a good start. We're trying to fix this. We are taking baby-steps towards a Crown corporation with the precedent set by the Alaska Railroad. In public, our Governor supports this. In private, with no public notice, he sends offers to the Philippines to take our ships. But... your Stan Rogers has the right of it. And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow... with Smiling dummies lying to you everywhere you go, Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain, and like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again! Look, we're going to fix this, but we're having to play the long game to do it. We got back a ballet initiative that replaces our primary election and first-past-the-post voting with ranked choice. We are going to get rid of the Anti-Math Caucus who will get primaries if they ever took a serious look at our budget. The assholes who depleted our State reserves by $15 BILLION dollars because they were too gutless and spineless to admit that we need either new revenue or to, you know, stop giving quite as large of a Permanent Fund dividend each year. They have decimated our university. They have stopped paying on school bonds, destroying the tax base of local communities. They have destroyed the Power-Cost-Equalization program that made power affordable in rural Alaska. They are threatening to shut down State government in the middle of the first tourist season in a year and a half to try and enshrine the Permanent Fund Dividend into our constitution. Let me say that last part again. House Republicans are threatening to destroy our post COVID recovery to enshrine Universal Basic Income into our Constitution. This, sir, is why it's hard for you to understand what's going on with the AMHS. Our primary system has turned our politics insane, because the Anti-Math Caucus will be primaried if they actually look at numbers. But, let me say this with all the strength of my arm, heart, and brain. We will fix this. /Edit to add- apparently ProBords does have filters. I promise, I did not Bowdlerize Stan Rogers.
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Post by ancflyer on Feb 20, 2022 10:15:43 GMT -8
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Post by Name Omitted on Mar 17, 2022 8:29:08 GMT -8
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Post by paulvanb on Mar 18, 2022 15:09:05 GMT -8
It may be a pipe dream, but if they are serious about turning it into a museum and marine training facility, the sale price - $1!
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Post by Starsteward on Mar 18, 2022 18:09:32 GMT -8
It may be a pipe dream, but if they are serious about turning it into a museum and marine training facility, the sale price - $1! As nice as a museum may be, I think the State of Alaska is really in a long-term crisis mode about fixing/rebuilding their entire system. I'm having a real hard time believing the good folks of Alaska are allowing the disintegration of their ferry system to continue in real time. Blame some of this on the 'Jones Act', so.....
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