Kalakala for sale for $1 or best offer (updated)
Dec 6 2011 in Currents by Deborah Bach
Updated: Dec. 6, 12:23 p.m.
The storied ferry Kalakala can be yours for a buck or less.
The Kalakala’s website says the ship is up for sale for $1 or best offer, ideally to someone with plans (and deep pockets) to restore the ferry to its former glory. Salvage companies need not inquire.
Alternatively, the ship’s owner is seeking investors to pony up funds for a planned $49.5-million restoration project.
Meanwhile, the Seattle Times is reporting that the Coast Guard has given the Kalakala’s owner a deadline of Dec. 19 to provide information on where he plans to move the boat because it can’t remain in Tacoma’s Hyebos Waterway, where it has been for six years. And Concrete Tech, the owner of the site where the ship is moored, has terminated the Kalakala’s lease, requiring the boat to move by the end of the year.
Built in 1926, the Kalakala operated as a ferry on Puget Sound from 1936 until her retirement in 1967. Noted for her art deco styling and streamlined appearance, the ferry was a major attraction during the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair.
After her retirement, the Kalakala was moved to Alaska and used for crabbing and processing shrimp before being turned into a cannery. It was purchased in 2003 for $136,560 by current owner Steve Rodrigues, whose various ideas for the ship have included restaurants, an ice skating rink and a carousel.
Last spring, the Kalakala began taking on water and listing to the side. According to the website, the ship’s leaks have been repaired and a team of volunteers is currently working to repair her.
onthewaterfront said on January 25, 2012
This boat is cool; no doubt about it. However I am a fervent believer in the “form follows function” rule. And this boat just doesn’t have it. Look at the pilot’s window … they cannot even see the dock from their perch. The bubble comes out too far and obscures the view of the pilot! That, to me, sort of says it all for this boat. Instead … bring it ashore and turn it into a skating rink … or a bowling alley … or a theater. Really go for the 1950s feel. Put an adult section upstairs so parents can watch their kids! Never has the saying “a boat is a hole in the water in which you throw money” ever been MORE true than for this sad ship. Let her live on with children playing and laughing and adults reminiscing about the “good old days.”
Shawn Liu said on December 15, 2011
I’m a volunteer on the Kalakala, and after we got king 5 to do the news segment, Steve, the owner has been getting offers from all over! There is hope that she will be saved.
sliu82.wordpress.com
thommy said on December 7, 2011
I’m very sad to say I agree with the “scrap her” contingency. I’d love to see here restored to her former glory but there has been ample opportunity for a saving angel to step up. It hasn’t happened and it ain’t gonna. There are too many other more deserving, less expensive options.
thom
Aaron Stevens said on December 6, 2011
It is in pretty bad shape. It would be cheaper to build another one and then install the main beam into it.
Terry Parkhurst said on December 6, 2011
There was even a rumor that the LeMay Museum, aka “America’s Car Museum,” was considering using the Kalakala, in some capacity. While that rumor made print (a newspaper), it remained unsubstantiated.
Too bad the either the LeMay Museum, or the LeMay family, could make that rumor become fact. Not all of the automobiles or trucks, from either collection would fit on the Kalakala’s decks; but there could be a rotating display of differing decades of autos and trucks; with a theme of “That’s how it was” (to borrow a phrase from the late Walter Cronkite).
Of course, the problem remains of coming up with the money to restore the Kalakala, a norhwest legend of sorts. Convince some of the car collectors with money, that the ferry is restoring and it might happen. Look for public money now, is akin to looking at water evaporating.
Eric Fowler said on December 6, 2011
It’s a wreck. Scrap it, or sink it. Enough already.
Scott Omli said on December 6, 2011
it has got tons of potential…dumb comment
Richard6218 said on December 7, 2011
Second that motion. Once a vessel gets to the condition this is in there is almost nothing that can be done to restore it. It’s just throwing good money after bad, a sinkhole that would return next to nothing. It’s worth more for the scrap metal than anything anyone could do to it. Even Paul Allen, who if he was going to would have stepped forward long ago.
Zach Barker said on December 6, 2011
Paul Allen? Bill Gates? Jeff Bezo?
Anyone with deep pockets want to give back to the community it is such a shame to see this play out – not to mention that restoration would provide desperately needed jobs in the maritime sector….
Marilyn Rudder said on January 23, 2012
I hate the way the Kalakala has deteriorated over the years. I have ridden on that boat so many times when it was on the Bremerton/Seattle run. I would also like to add that my Grandmother made the drapes for the ferry’s many windows when it was first commissioned. Wonderful memories of a great boat!