The fast ferry Fairweather docks at Juneau’s Auke Bay Ferry Terminal in 2013. It’s been sailing since 2004 but could be retired later this year. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska News)
The Alaska Marine Highway System appears to be phasing out its fast ferries. One is in long-term storage and the other will join it this fall.
Sitka resident Mim McConnell’s family car has an ignition problem. But the dealer is in Juneau and only way to get it there — the ferry system – doesn’t sail very often anymore.
“I cannot affordably get that car over to Juneau to get it repaired and then get it back here. There’s no quick turnaround, for one thing. So I haven’t even bothered getting it fixed,” she said.
The realtor and former Sitka mayor is one of many coastal Alaskans dependent on the marine highway system. She’s among those who’ve come to appreciate the fast ferries, which shorten sailings, allowing such a trip to happen in a day or two.
McConnell said that’s also been helpful for sports teams, school clubs and others needing a quick turnaround that saves lodging and meal costs.
“Having affordable access on and off an island, that’s huge. That can have a tremendous economic impact on a community,” she said.
Fast ferry service has become less frequent in recent years. And soon, it will be gone altogether.
That’s because a pair of slower, short-run Alaska Class Ferries will begin sailing next year.
“Once we have two new ships, it’s very difficult budget-wise to maintain the existing fleet,” said Capt. John Falvey, general manager of the Alaska Marine Highway System.
The ferry system’s had to reduced sailings as its funding’s been cut.
He said the fast ferry Fairweather will sail its usual Southeast routes this summer, connecting Juneau to Sitka, Haines and Skagway. It will switch to Prince William Sound in the fall, linking Whittier, Valdez and Cordova.
A draft fall-winter-spring ferry schedule released Thursday shows it leaving service mid-November. It will be tied up for the winter with no plans for its return. But Falvey said nothing is final.
“We’ll have to see, budgetary-wise, where we are once we get at least one (Alaska Class Ferry) running on May 1, 2019. That’s our goal,” he said.
The two new ferries are being built at the Ketchikan Shipyard. The Hubbard and the Tazlina will connect Juneau, Haines and Skagway, one of the routes the Fairweather sails.
While it will be laid up, the fast ferry will be kept ready for use. That’s the case for its sister ship, the Chenega, which was tied up about two and a half years ago. The state paid about $160,000 for the first year the Chenega was in storage.
A baggage cart, nicknamed Starfish, leaves the Chenega in Sitka Sept. 3, 2015. The fast ferry is tied up and may not return to service. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska News)
The state sold another tied-up ship, the Taku, for scrap earlier this year for $170,000.
But Falvey said it has no immediate plans to sell either fast ferry.
“We let all the certificates and everything lapse on the Taku, whereas we’ve got all the high-speed code certificates and things like that in a frozen-type mode on the Chenega. So we could pretty quickly activate that ship and do the same thing with the Fairweather,” he said.
The first fast ferry began operations in 2004, followed by the Chenega in 2005. They sail faster because they are compact, lightweight and have more powerful engines than other ships their size.
But they burned more fuel, so they were also more expensive to run than the system’s other small ships.
