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Post by Electric Thunderbird on Aug 15, 2007 8:01:47 GMT -8
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Post by SS San Mateo on Apr 5, 2008 16:00:19 GMT -8
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Post by SS Shasta on Apr 25, 2008 17:31:27 GMT -8
With all of the issues related to the Port Townsend-Keystone run, I wonder if Pierce County officials wished they had not moved so fast to sell off the old girl?
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Post by Barnacle on Apr 26, 2008 6:32:34 GMT -8
I very much doubt it. WSF's Keystone problems are WSF's, not Pierce County's. Pierce County was smart enough to replace its antiques in a more timely manner, rather than continuing to refurbish them out of all recognition.
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Post by Electric Thunderbird on Apr 29, 2008 17:07:06 GMT -8
No, but probably leary about thier boats getting swamped in a storm.
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Post by SS San Mateo on May 18, 2008 18:43:09 GMT -8
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FNS
Voyager
The Empire Builder train of yesteryear in HO scale
Posts: 4,948
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Post by FNS on May 18, 2008 19:10:10 GMT -8
Now, that is one ferry that's nicely preserved. Way to go, new owners!
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Post by BreannaF on May 28, 2009 2:33:26 GMT -8
Another article on the Steilacoom in this morning's Online Seattle P-I, with perhaps a bit more historical info than I've seen before: ==================================================== Visit a historic ferry, buy a new condoThursday, May 28, 2009 Last updated 12:22 a.m. PT
By AUBREY COHEN SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF
Point Ruston developer Mike Cohen came to visit Seattle this week, riding his sales center up from Pierce County.
"We knew we didn't want to put it in a mobile home or a trailer," Cohen said. "If you build a really nice sales center, it tends to always be in the way."
The solution was the former Motor Vessel Steilacoom ferry, which R. T. Wallace of Hado Inc., of Las Vegas, bought on eBay from Pierce County for $49,500 in 2007 and sold to the developer, who reopened it as a sales center in March 2008.
Capt. Tom Palmer, who was Pierce County's original captain for the ferry and served in the role for 20 years, drove the boat up to Seattle's Bell Harbor Marina, where it is scheduled to stay until June 4.
The ferry ended its public life as the backup boat on the run between Steilacoom and Anderson and Ketron islands but started out, in 1936, in Bath, Maine, as the Aquidneck.
It served the Navy during World War II, ferrying vehicles to and from Ford Island at Pearl Harbor and also hauling other items, such as torpedoes.
Pierce County acquired the boat in 1976 and booted it to its backup role in 1994, when a larger ferry, the Christine Anderson, went into service. Pierce County put the Steilacoom II, a sister ship of the Christine Anderson, into service in 2007.
Cohen covered over the carports with surplus Boeing aluminum and installed the sorts of things buyers see in any sales center: a kitchen with granite counters and stainless-steel appliances, hemlock floors and moldings, tile bathrooms and a room filled with all the available fixture, cabinet and tile variations.
But the old ferry benches remain upstairs, along with signs spelling out the rules for passengers. The original captain's wheel was already replaced with a joystick-controlled hydraulic steering system, but Cohen has bought an old wheel to put in for show.
There still is an old-fashioned metal funnel sticking up -- the kind used to draw air into a ship -- but that turns out to be an accoutrement Cohen added for effect. He tried turning on the old floodlights once, but blew a breaker.
Cohen saw the ferry as the perfect way to promote his development because the project is all about the water. It sits on 97 acres along one mile of Tacoma's shoreline, between North Ruston Way and Point Defiance Park.
The site is the former home to an ASARCO smelter and has undergone more than $100 million worth of cleanup so far.
The development plan ultimately calls for around 1,000 residences -- including condos, apartments, townhouses and detached houses -- along with offices, retail space, a movie theater, parks and a 10-acre waterwalk along the shore.
The first phase -- 143 homes in two buildings -- is now under construction. The development has 35 homes reserved or with purchase and sales agreements.
"We think we're outperforming the market," Cohen said.
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Post by whidbeyislandguy on Jun 23, 2009 23:09:20 GMT -8
I just found a link on her as she first was. Indian and early colonial name for the island in Narragansett Bay, between Newport and Goat Island. Aquidneck is an Algonquin word meaning "at the island" and was suggested to the Navy by the mayor of Newport, R.I., Henry S. Wheeler. (YFB-14: dp. 544; l. 151'0"; b. 53'0"; dph. 14'6"; dr. 9'6"; s. 9 k.; cl. Aquidneck) The steel-hulled ferryboat Aquidneck (YFB-14) was laid down on 28 July 1936 at Bath, Maine, by the Bath Iron Works Corp. (Bath's hull no. 167); launched on 13 February 1937; sponsored by Miss Valnessa Easton, daughter of Lt. Comdr. Glenn H. Easton, CC, USN, Superintending Constructor at Bath Iron Works; and delivered to the Navy on 22 May 1937. Aquidneck—built to replace Narragansett on the run from Newport to Goat Island, servicing the needs of the Naval Torpedo Station, Newport—commenced her service on the morning of 28 May 1937 from the Government Landing at Newport. Over the next three decades, Aquidneck operated as a ferryboat within the 1st Naval District, principally servicing Newport, R.I., until placed out of service, in reserve, in October 1971. Stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 July 1975, Aquidneck was transferred to the state of Washington on 19 December 1975 Here is the link.. www.history.navy.mil/danfs/a10/aquidneck.htm
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Post by SS San Mateo on Jan 1, 2022 10:27:50 GMT -8
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