The Alaska Marine Highway System ferry Columbia will be in dry dock through mid-November with a damaged propeller, the ferry system announced Friday.
The twin-screw ship, the largest in the state fleet, was damaged in mid-September. On the week of Sept. 15, the ship’s crew noticed a significant vibration when the ferry ran at high speed.
During a stay at Wrangell, divers inspected the ship’s hull and found the starboard propeller “had a noticeable bend to it, where it looked like it had been hit by something,” ferry system spokesman Jeremy Woodrow told public radio at the time.
The ferry was delivered to a dry dock in Portland, Oregon for inspection.
On Friday, the ferry system announced that “mechanisms associated with the propeller system are damaged” and that the estimated time of repair is four to five weeks.
To fill in for the 418-foot Columbia, the ferry system has freed up the 382-foot Kennicott.
Both ships sail the route between Southeast Alaska and Bellingham, Washington, but the Columbia can carry 499 passengers and 133 cars; the Kennicott can hold only 450 passengers and 78 cars.
Passengers are being rebooked on the Kennicott “to the extent possible,” the ferry system announced, but because of limited space, the system is asking passengers to consider alternative routes, such as boarding the ferry Matanuska in Prince Rupert, British Columbia.
Until the accident, the ferry system had planned to put the Kennicott into layup as a cost-saving measure. That layup was expected to begin Oct. 3 and continue through the end of the year.
In a separate announcement last week, the state confirmed that a replacement for the oceangoing ferry Tustumena is a top priority.
