Honey, we shrunk the fleet!

In January, Kingston was finally crewed up for full-time, two-boat service. After Puyallup bent her prop, however, while crews were available, a replacement boat wasn’t. The spotlight on crew shortages has masked a more difficult challenge: fleet readiness.

Maintenance and preservation had long been decided by the skippers and engineers who worked the boat. Knowing the ship’s unique personality, they instinctively knew what needed to be done. While that worked for 50 years it was difficult for planners and budgeteers. So, in 2007 a Life Cycle Cost Model mandated setting out the needs of each ferry’s systems over a 60-year life. Ferries assess a ferry’s “State of Good Repair” by tracking about 95 systems per boat.

To be in a “State of Good Repair” a ferry must:

1. Have no more than 20% of systems that need rebuilding or replacement.

2. Have at least 80% of ongoing maintenance done.

3. Have 95% functionality. You can have all preservation done but an event, like Cathlamet’s collision, can take the boat out of service for eight months.

4. Have all safety work done. These include Coast Guard requirements such as drydocking.

At the last report, only seven of our 21 ferries were in a “Good State of Repair.” The lion’s share of deficient boats were those with more than 20% of systems overdue for rebuilding and replacement. Since 2007, the legislature has only funded about half of the needed work. Overdue preservation has doubled in the last five years and is now a staggering $269 million—meaning that, with limited funds, Ferries must inspect and assess the failure risk for 1,986 systems rhen spend what they have and roll the dice. As the backlog increases so does the chance of rolling craps.

Factors other than funding affect fleet reliability. First, after the early retirements of HYAK and ELWHA Gov. Jay Inslee stopped production of replacements to shift to hybrids. That left us with a minimal fleet: 21 underfunded boats, until hybrid boats arrive between 2027-32. Adding to that ferry shortage our three Jumbo IIs will be taken offline a year at a time for hybrid conversion.

Second is the drain on experience in the trades, including marine engineers. In the last two years, WSF has lost 25% of its engine crews and an even larger percentage of the crafts at Eagle Harbor in Bainbridge. It is likely that WSF has lost a net of over 1,000 years of experience in the engine department over the last two years. It was lack of personnel that caused Eagle Harbor to outsource the overhaul of Wenatchee’s diesel—an overhaul after which a catastrophic diesel engine failure cost $10 million and took 10 months to fix.

Third is the policy of not investing in boats “soon to be retired.” That return-on-investment mentality is blind to the need for taking care of those old-timers who hold up our 21-boat fleet. Without them, we’ll lose service.

Budgets and plans are words and numbers on paper. They change with politics, and perhaps what Inslee had for breakfast. Under the deck plates is a different reality. The staff may cut a budget, but ships don’t follow orders, and they can’t be court-martialed. To quote Richard McKenna (chief machinist’s mate retired) from his novel “Sand Pebbles”: “Machinery always obeyed its own rules, and if you broke the rules, it didn’t matter how important, or charming or how pure of heart you were, you couldn’t get away with it. Machinery was fair and honest, and it could force people to be fair and honest.”

A lesson to be learned in Olympia.

Walt Elliott writes a monthly column on Washington State Ferries for this newspaper.