M/V Susitna ‘floats!’

KETCHIKAN — The M/V Susitna was launched Wednesday evening at the Ketchikan Shipyard.

The 195-foot ship floated free for the first time a little after 6:30 p.m. in the waning sunlight of a clear blue day. Assisted by five small boats and the tug Ardie, the tug Jennie B eased the Susitna clear of drydock. As the unique ship was moved toward Tongass Narrows, a worker standing on its main deck looked up with a big smile and shouted to onlookers.

“It floats!” he exclaimed.

The sight of the M/V Susitna afloat heralded a big day for Alaska Ship & Drydock, the Ketchikan-based company that operates the state-owned Ketchikan Shipyard and has been building the Susitna since early 2007.

It also was a milestone for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, which plans to operate the vessel as a 130-passenger, 20-car ferry in upper Cook Inlet.

Mat-Su Borough Manager John Duffy said Friday the borough expects to have its ship by around September. The plan is to put it in service almost immediately, but not on a set schedule and not with cars. Not yet.

“Something more limited like a morning run and a afternoon run between Anchorage and Mat-Su and then Tyonek maybe once or twice a week,” Duffy said, thinking out loud. “Come next spring we go with the full schedule.”

More routes might be added later. Duffy said he receives multiple calls each week from the Kenai Peninsula — mostly business interests down there — asking when the ferry will arrive and if it can make runs to communities there.

Duffy said cars will come in once the borough has worked out its differences with Anchorage over where to land the ship and secures money to build the landing on the Anchorage side.

“That’s moving along fine. I’m real confident that we’ll do it,” Duffy said.

But before any of that happens, the ship has to get through its trials. The shipyard will get a crack at it, then the borough, and then the Navy will get its turn. The Navy trials will take the most time, Duffy said.

“They’re very extensive (tests) and one of them includes putting that A1-M1 tank on that baby and the putting it on a beach and landing it,” Duffy said.

The Susitna, after all, was built first and foremost as a half-scale Navy prototype, what it calls a demonstration ship. Most of funding for the ship’s cost of about $70 million came from federal sources.

For ASD, company president Randy Johnson said Wednesday’s launch of the Susitna represents a “tremendous accomplishment” for the shipyard.

“This is probably one of the most complicated vessels that you would ever have to construct,” Johnson said. “It’s really a great success story for ASD in terms of, not only the quality of the ship that we’ve built, but also the satisfaction level we have.”

ASD’s skilled workforce has impressed officials from the Office of Naval Research and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.

“I must say that for a small shipyard — for any size shipyard — the work done here is absolutely first class,” Paul Rispin, a Navy program manager, said.

After the launch, the Susitna is to be moored pierside at the Ketchikan Shipyard for outfitting.

To call the Susitna design unique is somewhat of an understatement.

The 195-foot catamaran is the world’s first ship that can operate as both a shallow-draft landing craft and a high-speed, open-water “small-waterplane-area twin-hull” vessel.

The Susitna also is the world’s first icebreaker that uses parts of its hull to go under ice and crack it by lifting it up rather than pushing down on it, said Lewis Madden, the Mat-Su Borough’s owner representative for the Susitna project.

“This is the world’s first in a number of ways,” Madden said.

For example, the Susitna’s four water-jet propulsion units were specifically designed for the vessel.

“(The Susitna) has serial numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 of axial-flow water jets, which are specific-designed water jets that provide good bollard pull — good low-speed performance,” Madden said. “It has serial numbers 1 and 2 of very big midship thrusters. A typical midship thruster is 300 to 600 horsepower. These are 1,600 horsepower.”

Then there’s the center cargo deck, which incorporates a highly synchronized hydraulic lift mechanism that ensures all corners of the deck move at the same rate — deviating by only small fractions of an inch — while being able to withstand tremendous weights.

“The lift system is the really big innovation for this thing,” Rispin said, crediting the work of the system designers, manufacturer and ASD.

ASD also broke new ground in manufacturing techniques in order to construct the Susitna.

“ASD developed several technologies for metal forming and shaping that all … are world class,” said Capt. JL Morris, Office of Naval Research deputy, sea warfare and weapons. “It’s way beyond any reasonable expectations.”

Various comments by officials Wednesday indicated that the opportunity to work on a one-of-kind, new-concept vessel had sparked a sense of pride in the participants.

And it’s a project that’s being watched closely by a range of academic and industrial entities.

“There’s a great deal of interest the world over already in this ship,” Madden said.

At about 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, the Susitna was about to be lowered into the water — just part way — for the first time.

ASD personnel would be checking for any leaks around the water jet, sea chest and thruster areas for several hours before the vessel would be launched to float.

As the day continued, the Susitna was found to be clear of a leaks, save for a light seepage at a valve, which was corrected.

The day before, Tuesday, the Susitna underwent the first major test of its center cargo deck lift system.

“The system was exercised to about four times normal load — 800 tons pressing down,” Rispin said. “A few more tons and we could have lifted the ship off the blocks — but we didn’t do that.”

The test was a success. Height differences between the deck’s four corners were measured at just about a tenth of an inch.

“The single biggest (technical) difficulty was getting that lift system right,” Rispin said. “Yesterday was the really big test.”

At about 9:30 a.m., the Susitna touched the water of Tongass Narrows for the first time as the lower portions of its twin hulls were submerged for the leak tests.

Then, in the early evening and with the approach of high tide, the Susitna was launched.

Frontiersman reporter Andrew Wellner contributed to this report. Contact him at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or call 352-2270.