Ill fated Zanzibar boat, MV Skagit’s fact file

The two boats MV Skagit and MV Kalama before they were bought by the Tanzanian company

The ill fated MV Skagit together with MV Kalama were Class ferries and high-speed passenger vessels built for Washington State Ferries (WSF) in 1989.

The Skagit and Kalama were the only ferries in this class. Both vessels were permanently docked after WSF was directed in 2006 to end its passenger-only service, and in 2011 they were sold and expected to be transported to Tanzania where they have been providing service between the mainland and Zanzibar.

 The m.v. SKAGIT was designed to carry a maximum of 230 passengers.  The passenger-only ferry and a sister, the KALAMA were constructed in 1989 at Halter Marine in New Orleans, Louisiana. 

The original design of the boats was based on vessels that serviced off-shore oil rigs in the Gulf OfMexico.  An extra deck of superstructure was added to accommodate additional passengers.  Theboxy design of the cabin decks and the low twin funnels on either side gave the ferries a rather ungainly appearance. 

 The SKAGIT went by the official number: D949140, call sign: WAA6309  and had a length of 112 feet, beam of 25 feet and a draft of  8 feet.   The pair were ordered for service on Puget Sound but were laid up on arrival when there were no funds available to operate them.  With the Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco Bay area, the twins were loaned to that city to ferry passengers while the Bay Bridge was temporarily closed.  After returning north, the 25 knot ferries entered service but met with complaints regarding erosion caused by their large wakes and their propensity to roll in the waves. 

They ultimately met with success when the route was transferred between Vashon Island and downtown Seattle.  Washington State Ferries decided to discontinue their passenger-only service after the summer of 2009 with the SKAGIT and KALAMA being declared surplus.  In an interesting move, the state tried unsuccessfully to sell them on eBay.  They were finally sold in 2011 and taken to Tanzania where they operated for the Seagull Company between the mainland and Zanzibar.

Two different leading news agencies have reported the ferry to be the m.v. SKAGIT/KALAMA, although it does appear that it is in fact the SKAGIT that is either ”mostly submerged” or fully sunk.

State of the boats

The state finally has sold two of its discarded passenger-only ferries, the Kalama and the Skagit, to the African nation Tanzania.

The ferries have been docked and inactive since September 2009. The Legislature ordered the state to get out of the passenger-only ferry business in '06.

The two ferries had been sold to a boat broker in Port Coquitlam, B.C., which sold them to Tanzania. They will be put in service between the mainland of Tanzania and the Zanzibar archipelago. They were sold for $400,000 combined, far below the $900,000 value the state said they were worth in December 2009.
 

Marta Coursey, spokeswoman for Washington State Ferries, said the two boats will be taken to Africa by cargo ship.

The state had hoped to sell the two 112-foot boats locally, but when that failed, it placed them for auction on eBay, asking $300,000 each, with no success. The ferries were built in New Orleans and purchased in 1989 for $5 million.

Ferry historian Steve Pickens said the Kalama and the Skagit were the first two passenger-only boats the state built. They were supposed to go into service in 1989 but were tied up because there was no money to run them. Following the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, the two vessels were sent to San Francisco and served commuters crossing the bay while the city's bridges were repaired.

Chanzo:www.seattletimes.nwsource.com