Seattle/Bremerton ferry route reduced to one-boat service after hard landing of Wenatchee

The Seattle/Bremerton ferry route has been reduced to one-boat service due to a hard landing of the 202-car Wenatchee at Colman Dock Sunday morning, Aug. 30. The Seattle/Bainbridge Island route was on one-boat service from late Sunday morning until Sunday afternoon.

For the remainder of Sunday, Aug. 30, WSDOT Ferries Division (WSF) has reassigned the 144-car Hyak to the Seattle/Bainbridge Island route, restoring two-boat service to that route with the 5:30 p.m. sailing from Seattle. Overnight, WSF will move the Hyak to the Edmonds/Kingston route, and the 202-car Puyallup will move to the Seattle/Bainbridge route, restoring normal capacity on that route. This will reduce capacity on the Edmonds/Kingston route by 58 vehicles.

The 124-car Kitsap will be the sole vehicle ferry serving the Seattle/Bremerton route for the remainder of Sunday, on Monday, and until further notice. On Monday, the first car ferry sailing from Bremerton will be at 6:20 a.m. The one-boat schedule is posted at www.wsdot.wa.gov/ferries. WSF is also contacting private passenger-only ferry services to ascertain availability of vessels to provide additional service to Bremerton.

The decision to reduce vehicle ferry service on the Seattle/Bremerton and Edmonds/Kingston routes was made based on service characteristics. The Seattle/Bainbridge Island route has one of the highest volumes of vehicle use in the ferry system. The Edmonds/Kingston route also has a high volume of vehicle use and is heavily used by commercial traffic. The Seattle/Bremerton route has a high percentage of walk-on riders, and customers also have many options for transit connections.

The hard landing occurred at approximately 11:00 a.m. Sunday, at the conclusion of the 10:25 a.m. sailing from Bainbridge Island, with 163 vehicles on board. The Wenatchee landed hard in Slip 3 at Colman Dock, causing damage to the vessel’s bow and the slip’s wing wall.

WSF and the U.S. Coast Guard are investigating the cause of the incident, including standard drug testing for the captain and vessel crew. The Wenatchee has been taken to Todd Pacific Shipyards in Seattle after preliminary investigation and damage assessments at Colman Dock were completed. More information will be provided as it becomes available at www.wsdot.wa.gov/ferries.