Kitsap Fast Ferries carried a record 2,474 passengers to Seattle in the morning and 1,856 passengers to Bremerton, Kingston, and Southworth in the afternoon Feb. 11, largely due to the Seahawks Super Bowl championship parade that day.

These figures don’t include the passengers traveling to Kitsap in the morning or back to Seattle in the afternoon, per Kitsap Transit. The previous record was set June 5, 2025, when the fast ferries carried 1,750 to Seattle in the morning and 1,953 to Kitsap in the afternoon, or a total of 3,703 passengers.

“We’re proud of the outstanding service we delivered to Seahawks fans and commuters alike,” said John Clauson, KT executive director. “We had many, many first-time customers ride our bus and ferry services, and from everything we’ve heard, they had a great experience. Everything we did today we’ll integrate into our approach for this summer’s FIFA World Cup.”

KT’s fast ferry service didn’t exist in 2014, when the Seahawks defeated the Denver Broncos to win their first Super Bowl championship. Back then, some of the thousands of Seahawks fans traveling from Bremerton to attend the victory parade in downtown Seattle waited up to two-and-a-half hours to board Washington State Ferries, which was the only ferry operator on the route at the time. When these ferries reached full capacity, disappointed fans were left behind at the Bremerton dock, KT says.

In 2016, Kitsap County’s voters passed a sales-tax measure to support a new fast ferry service operated by KT. In the years since, the agency has grown to become the second-largest ferry operator in Washington state, behind Washington State Ferries.

New ridership records set

Overall, each of the fast ferry routes broke new ridership records:

Fourteen, or 88%, of the morning’s 16 sailings to Seattle carried the 118-passenger limit, while four (31%) of the afternoon’s 13 sailings to Bremerton were at full capacity. That is the highest number of full loads on a single weekday. Last year, the highest number of full-capacity sailings in either direction was six on Aug. 5. In total, the Bremerton fast ferry carried 1,536 passengers on its 16 morning trips to Seattle and 1,004 on its 13 afternoon trips to Bremerton.

Two Kingston fast ferry sailings set new records: 165 on the 8:45 a.m. to Seattle and 211 passengers on the 3:20 p.m. departure from Seattle. The previous ridership record on a single weekday sailing was 159, set last September on a 7:05 a.m. sailing. In total, the Kingston fast ferry carried 381 passengers on its three morning trips to Seattle and 347 on its three afternoon trips to Kingston.

The Southworth fast ferry set a record with 245 on the 2:55 p.m. to Southworth. The previous ridership record on a single weekday sailing was 239, set last June on a 4:05 p.m. sailing to Southworth. In total, the Southworth fast ferry carried 557 passengers on its four morning trips to Seattle and 505 passengers on its five afternoon trips to Southworth.

KT buses at ferry terminals showed that alightings in the morning were higher than January’s weekday average at Bainbridge Island and Southworth and lower than January’s weekday average at Bremerton and Kingston. Boardings in the afternoon were higher than January’s weekday average at Bainbridge Island but lower than average at the other ferry terminals. There were 721 alightings from KT buses the morning of Feb. 11 at Bainbridge Island, Bremerton, Kingston and Southworth terminals and 983 boardings later that afternoon at these terminals, per KT.

Extra staff, service deployed for parade

In preparation for the parade, KT communicated its service plans to the public in advance and asked existing riders to telework that day. The agency assigned additional ferry crew, marine service ambassadors, bus drivers, and customer service specialists, and tracked passenger loads on buses in real time. Extra buses operated on routes to ferry terminals to ensure everyone had a ride.

On the Bremerton/Seattle route, KT added four sailings to Seattle in the morning and three sailings to Bremerton in the afternoon, using three 118-passenger boats. As a result of adding a third boat for the day, customers in long queues had drastically shorter wait times for the next sailing.

On the Kingston/Seattle route, KT opened the upper deck of its fast ferry vessel to allow up to 324 passengers on board, instead of the normal 250. The Southworth/Seattle route operated with its regularly scheduled 250-passenger vessel.