Steel Electric ferries built to last — but not forever

Thirty years ago, Washington State Ferries hired a Bremerton company, Art Anderson Associates, to figure out what to do with the then-50-year-old Steel Electric ferries that were showing signs of age.

The company made three recommendations: Buy new boats at a cost of about $25 million, refurbish the boats by fixing the hulls and building new deck houses for about $7 million, or dump the boats. The company figured the state would get about $25,000 apiece in scrap value.

The Washington Legislature opted to fix the boats, which Art Anderson said would buy the state another 20 years. The work was so difficult, said Eric Anderson, with the Art Anderson company, that the shipyards initially had trouble even finding workers who could do the rivets on the old boats.

Fast forward 30 years. The Steel Electrics were still operating on the Port Townsend-Keystone route in late November when state Department of Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond pulled them out of service because of wear and tear on the vessels.

Earlier this month, a group of influential legislators said: Enough is enough; the ferries are too damaged to fix and should be replaced.

And three days later, the governor agreed, pledging to find money to replace the boats — dipping into money that was earmarked for other ferry- service projects. She also arranged to rent a boat from Pierce County to replace the Steel Electrics on the Port Townsend-Keystone run until the new boats are built. That service begins in January.

Boats "ran and ran"

How the old boats lasted this long is testament to how well they were made and how well they were maintained, said David Black, a longtime ferry worker and historian from Poulsbo, Kitsap County.

"The electric propulsion system was Cadillac," said Black, who worked 34 years for Washington State Ferries. "And they were in the loving care of the electricians in Eagle Harbor. The boats were overbuilt and just ran and ran and ran."

According to historians, the boats, built in the San Francisco area, were sold to Puget Sound Navigation in July 1940, and all were sister ships.

The Illahee was originally the Lake Tahoe, the Quinault the Redwood Empire, the Nisqually the Mendocino and the Klickitat the Stockton.

The Lake Tahoe and Stockton were owned by Southern Pacific Railroad, while the Mendocino and the Redwood were operated by Northwestern Pacific Railroad, and all became part of Southern Pacific Golden Gate ferries in 1929.

In the early 1900s Puget Sound ferry service was provided by a number of companies using small steamers known as the Mosquito Fleet, according to a history prepared by the Washington State Ferries. By 1929, the ferry industry had consolidated into two companies: Puget Sound Navigation and Kitsap County Transportation. A strike in 1935 forced the Kitsap County company out of business and left Puget Sound Navigation, known as the Black Ball line, with primary control of ferry service on Puget Sound.

In 1951, the state bought all the terminal facilities and ferries from Puget Sound Navigation for $5 million and created a new authority called the Washington Toll Bridge Authority, which became Washington State Ferries.

Bridges across Sound

Originally the ferries were to be temporary until bridges were built across Puget Sound, but that never happened.

While the state took over the ferry business, the tiny Olympic Ferry Co. continued to run the ferry from Port Townsend to Keystone, Whidbey Island. In 1974 Washington State Ferries inherited the route when the company, which had been operating the route since the 1940s, went out of business. Then-Gov. Dan Evans ordered the state to take up the route, considered an important summer tourist link.

The name, Steel Electric, was derived from the materials the boats were made from and from their propulsion systems. Diesel engines powered electric motors that propelled the boats.

Black said there was a class of wooden boats called the Wooden Electrics, and when new boats were made of steel and had a diesel electric engine, they became the Steel Electrics.

In 1958, he said, the boats went in the shop and car decks were expanded, but that was the only modification until the Art Anderson study 30 years ago.

The Steel Electric boats are the only ones owned by the state ferry system that can fit into narrow Keystone Harbor. At one time there was talk about relocating the harbor so it could handle the other state ferries, but that didn't happen — in part because of community protests.

And money set aside by the state Legislature to replace the Steel Electrics instead was shifted to building new 144-car boats, too big to fit into Keystone Harbor.