SEATTLE — Work accelerated in January on the 64-car ferry Chetzemoka, which is on schedule to launch this summer to serve the Port Townsend-Keystone route.
The new ferry will launch almost three years after the 80-year-old Steel Electric ferries were pulled from the Admiralty Inlet route for safety reasons, crippling ferry service between the North Olympic Peninsula and Whidbey Island.
The route has been since served by one 50-car ferry, the Steilacoom II, which Washington State Ferries leases from Pierce County.
The narrow and often shallow constraints of Keystone Harbor on Whidbey Island prevent the use of a larger ferry on the Port Townsend-Keystone route.
Todd Pacific Shipyards, starting in June, built the Chetzemoka’s bow inside a construction building on Seattle’s Harbor island, rolling it out onto dry dock in mid-January.
A 105-ton section of the passenger deck arrived Jan. 18 via barge from Nichols Brothers Boat Builders of Freeland, on Whidbey Island, and the structure was lifted into place atop the hull.
The pilothouses also arrived from Nichols Brothers and were hoisted with giant cranes onto the hull.
Construction crews are now attaching the superstructure, installing shafting and rudders.
During the good weather, crews are painting the vessel.
The state ferries system plans to build three or four new 64-car ferries in the next several years to replace parts of its aging fleet.
Nine of the ferries division’s 20 auto-passenger ferries are between 40 and 65 years old and must be replaced in the next 20 years. The last new state ferry was put into service in 1999.
The first two 64-car ferries will be assigned to the Port Townsend-Keystone route, restoring two-boat service with state-owned ferries to that route.
The new vessels will reduce the number of weather cancellations on the Port Townsend-Keystone route and will improve service, state ferries officials said.
Work on the second 64-car ferry is expected to begin this year.
The state Department of Transportation awarded a $65.5 million contract to Todd Pacific Shipyards in December 2008 to build the first 64-car ferry.
A second $114 million contract was awarded in October to Todd for a second and third 64-car ferry.
