Ferry project moves ahead

MAT-SU -- The Mat-Su Borough Assembly, Tuesday, took the next step forward in a process to acquire a dual-use ferry to travel between Port MacKenzie and Anchorage.

The assembly recently solicited proposals for ferry vessels that would meet a list of criteria, including being able to travel at high speeds and being able to cut through heavy ice. Two proposals were received and evaluated. Assistant borough manager David Germer said of the two proposals received, one met all of the borough's criteria and the other did not. The reasoning was reflected in information provided in the assembly's meeting packet.

"The proposal submitted by the firm that was not selected was based on the retrofit of an existing, unidentified vessel of unknown origin," the information memorandum states. "In order to accommodate the use of such a vessel, it was requested that the borough relax requirements such as speed, shallow water operation and heavy ice condition use. It was determined that these concessions, if given, would ultimately lead to a vessel that was not capable of performing the operations sought after and required."

Lockheed Martin submitted the successful proposal and was awarded $50,000 for a feasibility design study at the assembly's Tuesday meeting.

The borough has a big agenda for the proposed ferry. Although it's being billed as a dual-use vessel, whose backup use would be to provide search-and-rescue operations in the case of a passenger plane's crash into Cook Inlet, Germer said the ferry currently proposed by Lockheed Martin would actually have several potential uses.

Its first use, Germer said, would be as a passenger vessel, transporting people and vehicles to and from Anchorage. The ferry, now dubbed Knik TRB or transport/rescue boat, proposed by Lockheed Martin, would accommodate four lanes of vehicles with up to 15 feet of clearance between the vehicle and passenger decks. Operating at speeds of up to 25 knots, the diesel direct-drive ferry would include a hydraulic lift system that would raise and lower the vehicle deck. That option, according to Lockheed Martin's proposal, would allow the boat to operate in as little as three feet of water. In deep-draft mode, the four catamaran-style pods that carry the ship's four propellers would ride 14 feet below the surface. The deeper draft would give the ferry power to cut through ice and operate at high speeds safely in high seas.

The shallow-sea operation capability gives the ferry more operating options, according to Germer and information from Lockheed Martin, including use as a rescue vessel.

"The VariCraft offers rapid response and operations in all sea states for expeditious rescue of the potentially hundreds of survivors from a wide-body jet ditching in the Upper Cook Inlet," the proposal states. "The ship will transit to the crash site using the [deep-draft] mode to maintain maximum speed even in 24-foot seas. The VariCraft will then transition to the landing craft mode with very low freeboard for at-sea recovery of crash victims."

Germer said Lockheed Martin is also looking at ways to incorporate oil spill response capabilities into the boat's design and information from the company stated their goal to study, as a part of the feasibility design study, increasing the vessel's cruise speed to 30 knots.

A fourth use is being examined for the vessel, and it's one that may make the ferry more appealing to those who would help secure funding for its construction.

"The VariCraft Knik TRB can directly support planned construction of the Knik Arm Bridge," Lockheed Martin's proposal states. "Each TRB trip saves about 25 trucks round trips of 80 miles, equating to 2,000 truck miles."

The $50,000 approved for the feasibility and design study, Germer said, will allow Lockheed Martin to better define the ferry's design and identify whether it will be suitable for Cook Inlet waters. The study should be completed in the next six weeks.