< Browse to Previous Essay | Browse to Next Essay >

Washington Highway Director forced to go out of state to build four new ferries on December 21, 1965.

HistoryLink.org Essay 3050 : Printer-Friendly Format

On December 21, 1965, Washington State Highway Commissioners empower Highway Director Charles Prahl to award a $22.3 million contract to National Steel and Shipbuilding Company of San Diego, the low bidder for the construction of four vessels. Although hopes were high that the money would be spent in Washington, the state is left with no choice.

Original bids were for two ferries, and then upped to four ferries. Lockheed Shipbuilding of Seattle came in the lowest for the two-vessel bid, but the San Diego firm came in lowest for four vessels.

The Highway Commission looked into the legality of awarding the contract to Lockheed, but determined that even if they could award it to the Seattle firm, they would incur close to a million dollars of additional costs.

The state was already short $1.5 million for the four-vessel bid, and U.S. Senator Warren Magnuson had convinced the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to allocate that amount for the construction of the vessels. Not wanting any further delays, the state awarded the bid to the San Diego firm.

The four ferries were eventually called the Hyak class when launched in 1966 and 1967. They were enlarged versions of the Evergreen State class built by Puget Sound Bridge and Drydock Company in the mid-1950s. The new ferries were 382 feet long, carried 2,067 passengers and 160 automobiles, and had more than three times the horsepower of the Evergreen State ferries. At a service speed of 20 knots, the new ferries were 43 percent faster.

Sources:
"California Firm to Build All Ferries," The Bremerton Sun December 22, 1965, p. 1; "Ferry Boat Fund Available: Magnuson," Seattle Post-Intelligencer December 18, 1965, p.12.

By Alan J. Stein, March 04, 2001

Travel through time (chronological order):
< Browse to Previous Essay | Browse to Next Essay >

Special Suite: Washington State Ferries |

Related Topics: Maritime | Infrastructure |

Licensing: This essay is licensed under a Creative Commons license that encourages reproduction with attribution. Credit should be given to both HistoryLink.org and to the author, and sources must be included with any reproduction. Click the icon for more info. Please note that this Creative Commons license applies to text only, and not to images. For more information regarding individual photos or images, please contact the source noted in the image credit.

Major Support for HistoryLink.org Provided By: The State of Washington | Patsy Bullitt Collins | Paul G. Allen Family Foundation | Museum Of History & Industry | 4Culture (King County Lodging Tax Revenue) | City of Seattle | City of Bellevue | City of Tacoma | King County | The Peach Foundation | Microsoft Corporation, Other Public and Private Sponsors and Visitors Like You