Two new Bay ferries are under construction Seattle way. We check in with Mr. Happy, who is watching out for us.
Published: January, 2001
In another installment of our ongoing coverage of the two new ferryboats destined for San Francisco Bay currently under construction at Nichols Brothers Boat Builders, Bay Crossings recently checked in with Project Manager Happy (I kid you not) Richards.
Well, Happy, wow’s it going with our new boats?
It’s going swell. We’re building one boat for the Golden Gate Bridge Authority, which is a 44-meter catamaran ferry and we’re also building a 34-meter boat for the Alameda people down there.
So give us a quick run down on the status of both them. Where do things stand?
Well, the Golden Gate ferry that we’re building, it’s progressing quite nicely. The superstructure on that boat is, I would have to say, about 75% complete right now as far as the structure and we will be getting outfitting here within the next month I anticipate.
What do you mean by outfitting?
We’ll be insulating and we’ll bring in the finish work people to start dressing up the interiors. Hopefully we’ll be installing windows in 6-8 weeks. The hulls are just getting started on that boat. We’re build the hulls upside down. Then we flip them over. The flip date for S-139, which is what we call the Golden Gate Ferry, is March 24th 2001.
And the Alameda boat?
That one’s a little farther down the road. We got the people here this week from Australia. These are both International Catamaran Design ferryboats. We’re finalizing all the details so that we can start construction on that boat.
What will be different, better, or distinctive about these new ferryboats?
The Golden Gate boat is very similar to the Del Norte. The look is a bit different. We incorporated the same loading and unloading setup that they have there now. A lot of that’s the same too for the Alameda ferry. We had to design the boats around their specific needs, height off the water line say for the Alameda boat and the Golden Gate boat for their ramp assembly to grab onto the boat is going to be very similar, almost identical to the boat they have now.
So when do you find out what these boats are going to be named?
That’s not usually something that the customer is able to do for us until maybe two or three months before the vessel is launched. I’m not sure what the process that Golden Gate has for naming their vessel but we don’t have a name as of yet. I don’t know if they’re going to have a contest or what down in the Bay Area to name that vessel.
How much are they going to cost by the time you’re done?
The Alameda job is about $4.3 million. The Golden Gate is about $8.4 million.
How long will it take?
The Alameda boat is to be delivered October 1 and the Golden Gate ferry is June 1. The Golden Gate ferry then will have taken about 11 months to build and the Alameda ferry about 8 months.
How many men and women are at work on each of these boats?
About 55 people on the Golden Gate boat at this time, fewer on the Alameda boat until we get ramped up.
Tell our readers where it is and what it’s like up there.
HR: Well, Whidbey Island is a little bit of paradise in the Northwest. It’s up in Washington, in Puget Sound. We’re right across the harbor from Everett, just about 30 miles north of Seattle. It’s an island, which is actually the largest island in the continental U.S. It’s about 50 miles long. Nichols Brothers is situated in a little harbor called Holmes Harbor on South Whidbey Island. We’re about an hour from Seattle. You have to take a ferry to get over here from a little place called Mukilteo. It’s very rural here, a lot of small farms, a lot of people who have recently moved here.
How did Nichols Brothers happen to start building ferries up in Freeland?
Well, Nichols is a third-generation family of boat builders. They originally got their start up in Hood River, Oregon where Frank Nichols was building boats and they moved up here about 35 years ago. It was a machine shop when they moved here and they started building little 32 foot fishing boats and through the years, we’ve built quite a number of vessels.
Are these ferries each custom built or are they stamped out assembly line fashion?
No, they are very much custom boats. I mean the only thing similar from catamaran to catamaran is that they’re all International Catamaran Designs out of Sydney, Australia.
We’ve built four overnight boats, diver catamarans. We can build anything with this basic hull design. In Australia there are high-speed catamarans moving automobiles.
How do these ferries get from Whidbey Island to San Francisco?
They go under their own power. We’re actually delivering both of these vessels in the Bay Area and we’ll do crew training when we get down there. It takes about five days to drive down there.
Do you ever write secret messages on the under beams or behind panels?
For the most part, I’ll say no. I have found a few initials here and there inside the hulls. But we discourage that.
Are there any superstitions or special ceremonies that boat builders do? For example, skyscraper builders will put a Christmas tree up when they’ve topped off a building.
HR: Oh, yes. We try to never launch a building bow first. We launch them stern first. We try to never launch a boat on Friday. When we were building the fishing boats for fishermen, when we were raising the mast, we always tried to put some silver inside the mast, a coin usually. Some of those traditions haven’t always kept going. Like we haven’t put any silver under any of masts lately. But we do try to stay away from launching on Fridays and launching a boat bow first, whenever it’s possible
