Washington State Ferries has relisted the passenger-only Chinook ferry on eBay, starting the bidding at $4.5 million—the same price of a previous listing that fetched no bidders.
WSF’s director of legal services and contracts, Tim McGuigan, admits that he questioned why the vessel was listed at the same, unsuccessful price. But McGuigan says he was instructed by WSF management to relist the vessel at fair market value, per the instructions of Senate Bill 5862, which instructs WSF to sell the Chinook and Snohomish vessels and deposit the money into an account to be used by King County for passenger-only ferry service.
The Snohomish, however, will not be auctioned off—not immediately, anyway. WSF spokesperson Joy Goldenberg says the agency was given a “bye” by the state legislature, and can sell the Snohomish when they no longer need it as a backup.
Washington State Department of Transportation Chief of Staff Steve Reinmuth also says there is language in the bill that gives WSDOT “unique authority” in times of emergency, which he says WSF has endured recently.
That WSF is selling any working vessels at the moment is a bit surprising; the agency doesn’t have enough operating vessels to fill its runs as is. Steilacoom II, servicing the Port Townsend/Keystone run, is on loan from Pierce County. As recently as last month, WSF had to go outside the fleet to lease boats for its Bremerton run. And with nine boats rotating through four months of dry-dock inspections, there’s no telling what sort of havoc could be wreaked. “If any one of those vessels needs more work that we anticipated,” Reinmuth says, “there’s absolutely going to be service disruptions.”
Sen. Phil Rockefeller, one of 5862’s sponsors, explains the Chinook does not have a bow-load configuration, and therefore cannot land at any of the WSF terminals besides Pier 50 in Seattle. (The Chinook used to run between Bremerton and Pier 50 before it was decommissioned in 2003. Since then, the dock in Bremerton has changed, and the boat has not been able to land there.) According to McGuigan, however, this configuration is something that could be added to the Chinook, although he’s not sure what it would cost.
