WSF Island Home Class
The Seattle Times is reporting that the sole bid for the new Island Home class vessel is in. A short excerpt stated:
The shipyard's bid of more $124 million for two boats was more than $28 million over the state's estimate.
Ferry director David Moseley said he was disappointed that there was only one bid, "but we have to play the cards dealt us."
(Thanks to BE reader and BE Burgee designer, Mike Fisher for the lead on this one.)
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18 comments:
Once again, the Novemeber 2007 WSDOT/Governor decison to retire the steel electrics before having replacement ships in hand or at least on the way bares bitter fruit.
The shipyard knows the WSDOT FERRIES DIVISION is desperate for these ships.
They know the Governor won't risk the loss of face to put two steels back to work.
They know that the contract for Island Home will not go back out for national bidding.
They know the elections are over for a couple of years and that the public has a short term memory.
The shipyards are playing chess and the WSDOT leaders are playing checkers.
Once again, the cheapest thing to do that buys immediate relief is to fix two steel electrics for a ten year span of time, build the 3 144 car ferries while we design two 65 car vessels. Bid the little ferries on a national basis. It is so simple....
The rest of the fleet is losing maintenance time because we are covering for the little boats, this is hurting every ship in the fleet no matter what run. It can't continue, we can't keep blaming MVET a decade after the fact.
Moravian
So very true. If only there is still some time left and the USCG is willing to trust the State. It will take major weight to put any Steel Electric back to work.
The political wieght may be in place. Next it will take the Political Will to do the right thing.
Moonman
A more fundamental question is, why are our legislators insisting the ferries be made in Washington State? Our protectionist stace has only served to limit competition and raise the price to the taxpayers.
The law should be ammended to allow any qualified US shipbuilder to bid.
Raul
You can't blame the shipyards - Todd is in business to make money. Maybe if the WSF had a better mind for business it would have managed its assets better - oh that's right those politicans in Olympia are the decision makers - and they don't make good ones either.
The Coast Guard has had tons of patience with the ferry system over the last 25+ years regarding the Steel Electrics. The WSF and Olympia has merely failed in planning for and implementing an appropriate replacement for the rust buckets.
From an engineering perspective, as well as financial, I would not consider bringing an 80 year old vessel back on line (the costs to repair them alone to bring them to 2008 standards will be prohibitive).
Let's not consider the cheapest answer as the best, but the instead make the fiscally appropriate decision and extend the bid out on a national basis. Then raise the tolls to pay for not just buying the new vessels, but establishing a revolving fund for operating, maintaining AND replacing them at the end of their service life.
I do not think they should be built out of state. Let's keep our tax dollars in this state and stimulate our local economy. Plus there is the added cost for WSF to oversee the construction of the vessels.
Our local builders don't want this work. They have said so in submitting only one bid which exceeds the engineer's estimate by so much.
They are telling us they are too busy to build this ship(s) by their actions. We should move on.
Don't forget that the Ferries Division has another over budget building project in the works, the 144s. We can give the local shipyards another chance to employ Washington workers with that project.
I do think it is too bad that the state is trying to help a local industry that it very much needs to remain healthy but recieves this type of response.
In the end, the Todd position is does not help WSF any more than the Martinac lawsuits. Both cost the state a great deal of money and time. These delays are in part responsible for the rapidly deteriorating conditions in the rest of the WSF fleet.
The state has been loyal to the local ship building industry in both the political arena and in the maintenance management of the ferries. In response it gets a figurative gun put to it's head.
Well as a very long time loyalist to the fleet and the communities we serve, I say it is time we manage back.
The Island Home is the perfect vessel to build in the south because it is such a poor design in the first place. We risk very little building at such a great distance because even if perfectly executed it will not be a good ship for the intended service.
WSF has already crossed the poor quality tributary of the Rubicon with Island Home anyway. It has prioritized acquisition cost over life cycle cost and rapid delivery over appropriate service application.
There is nothing a local builder can do to it to improve on those qualities. We risk nothing going south.
On the other hand we send a shot across the bow of the local shipbuilding community and tell the south we are building the 144s in a few years, treat us right and we will open the bidding for those as well.
Yes, the local shipyards have been playing a smart game of chess but that is pretty easy against a very inexperienced management team such as this. In the end, the shipyards have the same managers who helped to cause the illness of their industry in the first place.
Except for DCI, these guys are not that good at chess themselves.
I think it is time to change the game to something everybody can understand, Rugby.
Moravian
You know, if we could just dredge Keystone Harbor (a man-made harbor, anyway), then the solution would have been to just put one of the Issaquah's on the run for now, and we would have had a lot more time to deal with the issue of needing new ferries.
Alternatively, if the state would have had the sense to get a new terminal in a new and more appropriate site, we wouldn't have had this problem, either. But we didn't, so we do.
So the solution is to take one of the four ferries that have holes rusting in their hulls, just enough steel welded on to keep them afloat, and 50 years behind on safety standards and try to refurbish one of them. If we did, there would be the expense of making some unique parts from scratch to match the 80-year-old technology already on the boats. As of right now, they have been stripped of their equipment. They have already been sold to a scrap dealer. It seems unlikely that these ferries could be rebuilt at either less expense or less time than just building a new ferry. Even at the "inflated" Todd rates.
By the way, do we really know at this point whether the bid is too high, or are we just presuming that it is the case because Todd has the "opportunity" to s---w the state.
At this point, the guy who owns the Kalakala wants to get the state to rescind the sale to the scrap dealer so he can use some parts on the Kalakala (or just fix up a Steel-Electric). From the sound of it, it may be more feasible to get the Kalakala up and running again than one of the S-E's. No, the days of any of those ferries ever being worthwhile to put back into regular service is quite slim.
The Coast Guard stated that the steel electrics could be certified again for operation, even though the certificates of inspection have lapsed, as long as a certain percentage of steel is replaced in the hulls. They said nothing about having to bring them up to current standards for this to happen.
That is correct, the CG is not the bad guy here, nor is the real conditon of the hulls. The fact is theat a great proportion of the hulls have already been replaced.
WSDOT would have you believe they are the rustbuckets Bryan believes they are. They are not. I have been on every single one, often in drydock.
But there is hardly any point in discussing them, the WSDOT is in a hurry to sell them so this issue does not distract from the new construction program.
Rome is burning, to bad there is no Sid Morrison around.
Morv
Regardless of whether Todd's price is correct or not we need to be building ferries. I agree with Moravian that the Island Home is a bad vessel. may as well build it as cheap as possible. It is obsolete in many ways now and will be a fuel, money, hog for its life. If it lasts only 30 years because of construuction flaws so be it.
If there is not the political will to build the correct vessel then lets get off our seat and build something. We need to be building 144's at a pace of one a year for the next 20 years just to replace the aging fleet.
The Steel Electric issue is a political mandate, not of WSF's choice. Same holds true for the build in Washington law.
If we do not start building vessels soon there will be few ship builders left to do the work. Our workforce is aging and without jobs to train the next generaton on we will not have the experience to do the work.
Government work is difficult. The paperwork is burden is very high. The construction schedule is extremely tight, if not impossible. WSF has not built a vessel in 10 years. Those who lead the last construction project may not be there so Todd will have to teach them all over again. They know this. They are in business to be profitable, not give it up to the State intentionally. they know the design may have flaws and they will be held accountable if they are not careful. Why should any builder risk this unless they have the chance to make some profit.
In all cases the bottom line is that WSF's own estimate is more than the funds allocated.
Besides the current problem with the sustainable funds to operate the Ferry System ther is one elephant not being discussed. with each passing minute we are moving ever closer to a catastrophic transportation nightmare. There are no spare vessels. we experienced only a major hiccup when the Walla Walla went down. Think of the consequences of a second vessel at the same time. Consider if one of them happened to be one of the two operating J2's.
We are out of time folks. If the Steel Electric's are not a part of the picture we have to move forward with the horses we have. You cannot just toss a bit of asphalt in the hole and go. the vessels must be operationally sound or they do not leave the dock.
For those in Seattle that think the Ferries are not important remember the huge number of workers that commute to the city daily to fuel the State of Washington's primary economic engine. Without the Ferries think of how clogged the roads would be. think of how much tougher the housing market would be.
For those East of the mountains I have been there. It is a pleasure to drive at the speed limit on cruise control. Remmeber however that most all of your goods go to or come thru the Puget Sound ports. The worse the traffic here the more it costs everyone.
Moonman
If the steel electrics were unsafe, they wouldn't have lasted 80 years!
Why should we spend $125 Million, plus $5 million per year operating costs, on a place (Port Townsend) you can drive to?
Anoymous said that "if the Steel-Electrics weren't safe, they wouldn't have lasted eighty years!"
Faulty logic. Do you expect your eighty-year-old grandmother to run a marathon?
Anonymous said, "Why should we spend $125 Million, plus $5 million per year operating costs, on a place (Port Townsend) you can drive to?"
Faulty logic there, too. You can "drive" to everyplace in the Washington State Ferry System EXCEPT the San Juan Islands, Vashon Island, and Sidney BC (why WSF is still serving that I don't know).
faulty logic?, I was talking about the boat design, not the just the age.
Anonymous says, "I was talking about the boat design, not the just the age."
Then you should've specified that. The design is not the issue at stake here. It's the fact that the boats themselves are eighty, not the design. The double-ended design is fundamentally unchanges from its invention.
Just because something is old does not mean it is no longer useful or safe.
WSDOT has taken it upon themselves to interpret USCG rules the way that fits their agenda. They have said that these boats could no longer safely carry passengers, anywhere, even though the Coast Guard has said otherwise. Then they sell them (give them away) for practically nothing so they can be scrapped far away in Mexico. Well thats really keeping the jobs in this state.
In the future more boats will eventually have to be replaced, if they aren't going to refurbish ferries anymore. The Rhododendron, Evergreen State, Klahowya, Tillikum will all be past 60 (WSDOTs retirement age) in about ten years.
So I guess we'll have to build even more new boats we can't afford within the next decade, cut current service levels, or start terminating routes.
Actually some of the hulls and the drive motors are 80, nothing else. Most of the hulls in contact with the water are substantially newer. The engines, generators, controls, steering, superstructure, emergency systems, navigation equipment, electrical system and much of the hull is about 20 years old.
When we say they are 80 years old, that is substantially untrue.
With a 5 billion dollar state deficit, one wonders if building two new, over priced, fuel inefficient ferries could be an IQ test for our government.
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