PORT ANGELES — Last-minute “fine tuning” of its new engines will prevent the ferry MV Coho from restarting car and passenger service to Victoria as planned today.
But the Black Ball Transport Inc. general manager says the ferry will sail Friday, beginning with its normal 8:20 a.m. run.
“We want the engines to be running right,” said Black Ball General Manager Wayne Barrett.
“It’s all in the fine tuning. It could have run, but for the safety of everybody it will not (run today).”
The Coho has been on a two-month hiatus to get new engines installed for the first time since its 1959 launch.
A “sea trial” of the engines near Seattle was also in order before the ferry could return home to Port Angeles today, Barrett said.
He added that the 341-foot vessel is expected to return to its Railroad Avenue ferry terminal sometime today, but he was uncertain when.
Barrett said Coho would resume its normal schedule Friday, “unless something drastic happens, but I doubt it will.”
It is returning to Port Angeles from Todd Pacific Shipyards in Seattle, where new General Motors Electro-Motive 12-cylinder diesel engines and related equipment were installed to give it about 1,000 more horsepower.
Tammy Harmon, who helps her son, Jack, operate the Victoria Express passenger ferry, said the Express will continue its 8:30 a.m. run to Victoria and 4 p.m. run back to Port Angeles for one more day today.
“We will run the same schedule,” Tammy Harmon said Wednesday at the Victoria Express ticket office in The Landing mall next to the Coho landing.
Meanwhile, this morning’s community party sponsored by Port Angeles Inn and the Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce to hail the return of the Coho and applaud Victoria Express is still a go — even though the Coho is no-show.
The event begins at 7:30 a.m. at the Black Ball Transport terminal at the foot of Laurel Street in Port Angeles.
