Date:  Friday, October 17, 2008

Contact: Marta Coursey, Director of Communications, 206-515-3918
Hadley Greene, Communications Manager, 206-515-3913

EDMONDS – Starting tonight, Oct. 17, the 188-car Walla Walla will return to service on the Edmonds/Kingston ferry route. The Walla Walla will join the 188-car Spokane, returning the route to its usual vehicle capacity. The 144-car Hyak has been on the route since Oct. 7 while the Walla Walla was out for necessary repairs.

The Walla Walla’s return will free the Hyak to return to the Seattle/Bremerton route, so the 144-car Kaleetan can go into WSDOT’s Eagle Harbor Maintenance Facility for its required annual inspection.

WSDOT Ferries Division removed the Walla Walla from service on Monday, Oct. 6, after a planned inspection revealed damage to a thrust bearing, a major piece of equipment on the vessel. To repair the thrust bearing, crews had to cut a hole in the car deck; remove a 6-foot-long shaft weighing two and a half tons; send it to a machine shop for repairs, then reinstall the shaft and put the vessel back together.

The ferry system currently has no back-up vessels, so when emergency repairs are needed, vessels must be repositioned to serve customers system-wide. This situation is intensified during the winter maintenance season, when more vessels are in WSDOT’s maintenance facility or commercial shipyards for annual maintenance and inspections.

For more ferry system information, please visit www.wsdot.wa.gov/ferries.

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