Historic Washington State Ferry Cheats Scrappers to Become Floating Office
One of the storied ferries familiar to residents of Washington State for its more than 50 years of service is cheating the scrappers and by a quirk of fate will be saved through creative reuse. Everett Ship Repair and Washington State Ferries have reached terms to see the Elwha, which was built in 1967, repurposed at the shipyard.
Last fall, Elwha, which had been retired in 2020, was due to slip away on a towline bound for dismantling in Ecuador. She had been sold for $100,000 and a tug arrived to start her final voyage along with another WSF ferry. They got the boats away from the maintenance dock in Bainbridge, Washington, but that’s when things started to go wrong.
According to reports the hookup failed. Then there were reports of problems with the 60-year-old tug that was hired for the 34-day trip. The ferries were brought back to the maintenance dock while rumors swirled in the media that the operator had abandoned the crew which was made up of people from Peru, Colombia, and Panama. U.S. Customs and Border Protection stepped in detaining the four crewmembers and ordering them deported.
Embarrassed by the ordeal, Washington State Ferries reported the deal was canceled. The ferry operator however wanted to sell the decommissioned vessels to free more dock space at its Eagle Harbor Maintenance Facility for planned and unplanned maintenance on its current fleet. They reported the two ferries were back up for sale.
Everett Ship Repair closed the deal this week to buy the Elwha for $100,000. According to the reports, the repair yard plans to modify and convert the ferry to a floating office and warehouse space. A tug was due to arrive on Thursday, January 30, to begin preparation to move the ferry to the shipyard.
“The Elwha has been part of Washington State Ferry history since 1968, and we're excited to see one of our ferries with so much history and memories for millions of passengers is being repurposed locally. It won't be the Elwha we've all come to know and appreciate, but I'm confident it's in good hands with a local shipyard,” said WSF Assistant Secretary Steve Nevey.
She was one of four 144-car Super-class ferries. It measures 382 feet and is 2,800 gross tons and when she was introduced, Elwha was considered to be one of the most modern ferries in service. She started service from Seattle to Bainbridge but was replaced by a larger ferry in 1972. Next, she was used to fill in on various routes for other ships that were undergoing maintenance and finally in the 1980s took up her permanent assignment sailing to British Columbia. She became a fixture of the route before her retirement. Two other ships of the class, Kaleetan and Yakima, are still in service.
After sitting at the repair facility, WSF was anxious to make space. They sold Elwha and a smaller ferry last year and reported that another retired ferry was also slated to be sold. The near-miss with the scrappers was not the only close call for Elwha during her long career. She went aground in 1983, with reports her captain steered off course to give a visitor a better view of her waterfront home reports the outlet MyNorthwest. In 1990, the ferry broke away from her dock in a storm and was damaged as she slammed into a concrete pier. There were also reports of several docking failures and problems during its career.
Washington State Ferries reports it plans to offer two other retired ferries, Klahowya and Hyak, for sale to clear more space at its repair yard. Klahowya was built in 1958 and is an 87-car Evergreen State-class ferry that was decommissioned on July 1, 2017. Hyak is a sister to Elwha that was decommissioned on June 30, 2019.
Top photo: Takeshita Kenji - CC BY-SA 3.0
Royal Caribbean’s Second-Generation Innovator Departs for Scrap
Another of the last survivors from the second generation of the modern cruise ship era and a pioneer for Royal Caribbean Cruise Line has quietly slipped away on her final voyage. Introduced in 1982 as the Song of America (37,500 gross tons), she was one of the largest cruise ships in the world and an innovator that would see 40 years of service first in the American market, later in Europe, and finally in the Greek Islands.
She had been retired in 2023 by her last owner, Greece’s Celesytal Cruises which had operated her for 11 years with her final name of Celestyal Olympia. She was sold in early 2024 to a flag of convivence company which renamed her Bella Fortuna and shortly after she departed for an anchorage off the UAE flying the flag of Liberia. It is often a way stop on a one-way trip to be recycled while getting the ships outside the European Union and the restrictions on licensed scrappers.
As of the first of the year, the cruise ship’s name was shortened to Fortu and her flag moved to Comoros. She departed the UAE on January 22 with her status listed in the databases as “to be broken up.” She is bound it appears to beaches of India’s infamous Alang.
When she was introduced in 1982, Royal Caribbean boasted that she was state-of-the-art. In the first preview brochure for consumers released in 1981, they wrote, “Every innovative maritime feature, every one of ‘tomorrow’s’ cruise concepts, will be part of Song of America today.” The company had gone into business a decade earlier the brainchild of an American entrepreneur Edwin Stephan with investments from Norway’s Wilhelmsen and I. M. Skaugen, and later Gotaas-Larsen. The first ships were 18,500 gross tons and embodied Stephan’s vision of “propelled hotels.”
Royal Caribbean first two generations: Nordic Prince (left) after the 1980 stretch and Song of America (right) (Allan Jordan photo)
Royal Caribbean was growing rapidly like all the cruise lines in the 1970s but had fallen behind Carnival Cruise Lines which converted a liner into the 38,000 gross ton Festivale and Norwegian Caribbean Lines which converted the superliner France, the longest passenger ship in the world, into the 70,000 gross ton ss Norway. First to increase capacity, Royal Caribbean stretched two of its ships but instead of rebuilding its third smaller ship, turned to the famed Wartsila shipyard in Finland to build what became Song of America.
The new ship was 705 feet in length with accommodations for 1,400 passengers and 500 crew. Externally she was sleek and advanced designs including taking the cantilevered lounge on the ship’s funnel by making it larger, with an interior entrance and elevator, and wrapped fully around the funnel. She used the design concept of “vertical separation” that places the public spaces and lounges aft and cabins mostly forward. She also innovated with a half (tween) deck of cabins in front of the extra-height main lounges. Passenger cabins however were still the small, standardized box Stephan had envisioned to encourage passengers to spend their time on deck or in the bars and lounges. (There was no casino in 1982, only a handful of slot machines placed in a discreet hallway.)
Keeping with a Royal Caribbean style her public spaces were all named from Broadway shows. The lounges were Can Can, Oklahoma, and Guys and Dolls, while the dining room was Madame Butterfly. She took over the “milk run” as the weekly cruises from Miami to Nassau, San Juan, and St. Thomas were known and was an instant success due to her comforts.
Song of America was part of the second generation of modern cruise ships all of which were around 40,000 gross tons and had accommodations for 1,000 or more passengers. They were larger than the first generation introduced in the late 1960s and provided a stepping stone to larger and finally the mega cruise ships of today.
The ship was christened by renowned American opera singer Beverly Sills, and on her maiden voyage the passenger list included former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalyn. Just six years later, Song of America would be eclipsed by Royal Caribbean’s new 70,000 gross ton Sovereign of the Seas, but she remained a workhorse for the company. She was also among the company’s first ships to homeport beyond Miami.
Remarkably unchanged she spent her last decade in the Greek islands as Celestyal Olympia (Celestyal Cruises)
Song of America left Royal Caribbean after just 17 years. She went to a UK operator and was renamed Sun Bird. She helped to build the UK market before being sold to the Cypriot firm Louis Cruises. Instead, she would sail on charter to another British firm Thomson Holidays as the Thomson Destiny. As part of the TUI family, Thomson evolved into Marella Cruises but before the transition seeking to modernize the fleet the now 30-year-old cruise ship was returned to her owners. She became the Louis Olympia and later Celestyal Olympia when the company was rebranded. She cruised the Greek Islands in the summer and spent winters in layup.
Remarkably unchanged since her introduction in 1982, she was finally retired late in 2023. She had outlived most of the second and even the third generation of modern purpose-built cruise ships. With her goes the link to the heady days of growth, but before cruise ships had water slides and water parks or any of the modern amusements. Passengers lounged in the sun by day, saw a floor show or a movie in the evening, and enjoyed their time at sea. She was a pioneer and then a throwback to the simpler, earlier days of cruising.
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