Washington Ferry in Rough Water
If you've been a reader here for a while, you are familiar with the fact that KeeWee and I live on a very large island, Whidbey Island. There are three main ways to get on and off of Whidbey, the Deception Pass pridge on the North end, the Keystone Washington State ferry West to Port Townsend, or the Clinton Washington State Ferry on the South end that takes you East towards Everett and Seattle, docking in Mukilteo.
It's not a long ferry ride from Clinton to Mukilteo, perhaps 20 minutes. About ten days ago there was a fairly good wind storm, but nothing spectacular. What WAS spectacular, however, was just how rough Puget Sound was where the ferry crosses to Mukilteo. When you get the tide running one way and the wind going the other way, it can get incredibly rough.
As the ferry Cathlamet was nearing Mukilteo a local photographer took some spectacular photos. These Issaquah 130 Class ferries are over 300 feet long and 78 feet wide and weigh in at 2477 tons (4,954,000 lbs) unloaded.
I've never seen a ferry take that much water over the bow!
All pictures: Click on picture enlarge
I'm glad I wasn't on that particular run. Knowing that the State of Washington had set the specifications for the boat and that it was built by the lowest bidder would not have been very reassuring!
![](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_o4jqapDeMEI/SOZ7VG0NZNI/AAAAAAAABV8/8Lo5Fr6rTIc/S220/BlogPic2.JPG")
12 Comments:
Just what I wanted to see, with some Strait of Georgia ferryboatin' coming up on Friday.....I think I'll get parked in the middle of the boat so as to not have my car drowned in salt water....
Oh boy - what a way to test your new sea-sick pills!!!
Merle
Yaargh! Talk about on the rail feeding fishes - just looking at that mekes me feel queesy.
Have you heard about the "herald of free enterprise"?
It was a roll on roll off ferry that set out from Zeebruger in Holland for britain.
The bow doors were still open, the guy who should have shut them was drunk.
As a result it took sufficient water onto the car deck that when the water all ran to one side, the ferry capsized.
Can't remember how many were drowned
Now, is that ferry one of those ancient ones that some folks refer to as disasters waiting to happen, or is it one of the newer ones?
I've seen the same relative amount come over the flight deck of an Essex class aircraft carrier - should have seen the plane pusjers scatter!!
The Cathlamet is a fairly new boat, it's the ferry that had so many computer malfunctions when it first went into service and it knocked down a number of ferry docks. There was even a song on the local radio stations "Why is it Cathlamet, when you see a dock you ram it?"
...... Mr. C.
Pretty impressive pictures!
That is an alarming amount of water coming over the bow. Even though I think the ride would have been fun.
Recent article said that WSF added more boats to the run so that the ferry wouldn't have to ride so low in the water, and they ran all boats after this one only half full.
Main problem here is that if sufficient water comes into the car deck, it can float the cars, causing them to all crash into each other. I hope everyone aboard had the good sense to run their cars through one of the many car washes along the boulevards after they got to Seattle...that salt water gets in everywhere in a storm like that.
I'm glad you like my images. Keep in mind that they are copyrighted. You can find the original images here, Thanks, Ross Fotheringham.
http://www.pbase.com/trackside_photography
Absolutely stunning to see ferry pictures.Rather breathtaking.
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