Coast Guard, ferry system team up for special inspections

The U.S. Coast Guard and Washington State Ferries are working together to inspect 12 ferries in the state fleet during off hours over the next eight days.

The inspections, which began last week and will end Dec. 23, are pre-emptive safety checkups that do not correspond with regular maintenance inspections, says Todd Howard, chief of domestic vessel inspections for the Coast Guard in the state.

This special-inspections order comes after recent discoveries of significant hull damage in other boats in the state fleet.

On Nov. 20, the four 80-year-old Steel Electric boats — the Quinault, the Illahee, the Klickitat and the Nisqually — were pulled from service because of severe corrosion and cracks in the hulls. On Thursday, Gov. Christine Gregoire declared the state will not spend money to fix them. Instead, she will ask the state Legislature for $100 million to build three new car ferries to replace the Steel Electric fleet.

Two other ferries, the Hyak and Hiyu, which were pulled recently for regularly scheduled maintenance, also showed "significant and isolated pitting," Howard says. That means they found corrosion on the inside of the hull, in spots between 4 to 5 inches in diameter, with dime-size pockmarks in the centers.

"We're not talking catastrophic failure here, but there are issues worth looking at," Howard says. "We want to make sure we get the whole picture so we know those boats are safe." Only the Steel Electric boats posed safety concerns.

All 12 vessels will be inspected during nonoperating hours, says Susan Harris-Huether, customer-information manager for the Washington State Ferries. Two vessels will be inspected each night and none will be dry-docked. WSF crews will drain the vessels' bilges so Coast Guard inspectors can examine the steel hull from the inside, Howard says.

"We have a pretty aging fleet, so it makes sense to take precautions," says Harris-Huether. "You find problems with one set of boats, you want to make sure those same problems aren't going on with another set of boats."

The 12 ferries scheduled for inspection range in both age and type. The newest, the Jumbo Mark II Class built in 1998, which is used on the Seattle-to-Bainbridge run, is not included.

Haley Edwards: 206-464-2745 or hedwards@seattletimes.com