After years of rotting away...the most usless ship in the world is sold!

it is true! so says Marine Log

[B]Philippine Red Cross to buy Susitna from Alaska borough[/B]

Susitna may have last found a buyer able to put its versatility to practical use Susitna may have last found a buyer able to put its versatility to practical use

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015 — Remember the Susitna? It’s the multipurpose ferry built at Alaska Ship and Drydock’s Ketchikan Shipyard (now Vigor Alaska) for Alaska’s Matanuska-Susitna Borough with the help of Defense budget earmarks put in by then U.S. Senator Ted Stevens.

Built as a technology demonstrator for the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the vessel has a catamaran mode for high speeds; a small-water-area-twin-hull (SWATH) mode for stability in high sea states; and a shallow-draft landing-craft mode that provides substantial buoyancy for maneuvering in shallow water. It is designed with a center “barge” that can be hydraulically raised and lowered, while the buoyancy of its catamaran hulls can be adjusted while under way. It can carry up to 129 passengers, 20 vehicles and has a 35-ton overall freight capacity. It can land on beaches in as little as four feet of water.

However, as we noted on, April 1, 2013, “since completion in 2011, it has functioned only in white elephant mode. With no suitable docks and no workable route, it has been costing Mat-Su Borough an average $75,000 a month for insurance, maintenance, fuel, docking fees and other expenses.”

Since then, the Mat Su Borough has gotten the maintenance drain down to about $30,000 a month, but has been desperately trying to get the ferry off its hands.

Now it looks to have found a buyer who can put the vessel’s versatility to good use. On September 1, the Mat-Su Assembly gave Borough Manager John Moosey approval to sell Susitna for $1.75 million to the Philippines Red Cross.

That’s the good news for Mat-Su taxpayers. The not so good? They may still be on the hook for some $12.3 million received in federal funding from the Federal Transit Administration. The Borough is “in discussions regarding the obligation and what may be done to mitigate a portion of this obligation.”

Here’s the text of a statement on the pending sale issued by the Mat-Su Assembly:

The Susitna Ferry will be plying the Philippine Sea delivering food and supplies to island shores and serving as a floating hospital after hurricanes if a near-final sale is completed between the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and the Philippine Red Cross. The Assembly gave Mat-Su Borough Manager John Moosey the approval to finalize the deal late last night (Sept. 1).

COST AND KIND

For $1.75 million, the international humanitarian organization seeks to buy the Susitna Ferry, a ship that is capable of operating as both a cargo-loaded barge that can haul itself onto shore and a twin-hulled vessel that cuts through choppy seas. The Susitna was built as a smaller scale prototype for the U.S. Navy, which funded most of the construction costs for the $80 million vessel.

Mat-Su Borough Assembly Member Jim Sykes went aboard recently at Ward Cove, outside Ketchikan, and described the Susitna last night as “an incredible vessel.”

The Philippine Red Cross wants to put the vessel’s agile operating modes to work in the disaster-prone Philippine Islands. Richard Gordon, Chairman and CEO of the Philippine Red Cross and also a former Senator of the Republic of the Philippines, highlights how.

“There is an average of 170 maritime accidents in the country every year, mostly in the Visayas area. The ship will be used to provide disaster relief and emergency services. It will also provide search and rescue services after maritime disasters. The Susitna will serve as a mobile clinic/hospital ship serving some of the most isolated of the 7,107 Philippine Islands.,” he said. “This ship will also be made available to other Red Cross societies in other countries for saving lives. Other government and non-government organizations involved in disaster relief and recovery operations may avail of the vessel,” Gordon said.

ATTEMPT AT FERRY PASSENGER SERVICE

Manager Moosey inherited the project when he arrived at the Borough four years ago. The Susitna was an attempt at connecting the two miles of water separating the rural, growing Borough and land-crowded Anchorage with ferry passenger service. The ship was also intended to serve as a rescue craft if passenger airliners fell into icy Cook Inlet. A ferry terminal was built on the Borough side, but ferry landings on both sides of Knik Arm were never fully funded.

EXHAUSTIVE EFFORTS TO DISPOSE OF THE SHIP

For three years, the Borough has enlisted ship brokers worldwide to sell the vessel, has tried to entice 500 members of a ship owners organization to buy the vessel, has followed through on dozens of dead-end offers, and has tried to give the vessel to several other American government entities. The Philippine Red Cross is the closest the Borough has come to selling the Susitna.

“I’m elated that this ship will be put to the noble work of saving lives after disasters in the Phillipines. We exhausted our options on disposing of this vessel. It’s time to give it new life, and release our taxpayers from the burden of its upkeep,” Moosey said.

THE DETAILS

The Borough will receive $1,750,000 and $60,000 for upkeep costs during repair.

Conditions of the sale:

>The Philippine Red Cross will deposit $250,000 for the Borough’s insurance deductible to pay for repairs to engines from heavy rainfall in Ketchikan.
>The Philippine Red Cross will cover Borough costs of ship dockage/utilities during the repair period.
>The Borough only pays insurance during repair, $16,000 a month.
>The Borough pays sales agent Lew Madden 2.5 percent for finding a buyer and completing the transaction.

Because the Susitna was a military prototype, the Borough must get written consent of federal agencies before the sale to a foreign entity. The Borough has been working for the past nine months on the approval. Borough Attorney Nick Spiropoulos said the Borough is nearly at day 90 in the timeline for the decision. It’s not clear when the federal government will make its determination, but he said he hoped it was in the next 30 days.

The Borough also received some $12.3 million in federal funding from the Federal Transit Administration for the ship project and construction of the ferry terminal building and has been informed by FTA of an obligation to repay the grants. The Borough is in discussions regarding the obligation and what may be done to mitigate a portion of this obligation.

not mentioned is how many tens of millions the grand and glorious US Navee forked over to have this floating abortion built in the first place which might as well been shoveled into a huge pile and set alight! FUCKING IDIOTS!

YUUP it made the local radio news the other day …but hell they are gonna lose close to 10mil ,big dummys

from i understand,this thing has never once been used.only maintained

WTH, I’m fine with the Philippine Red Cross owning such a vessel, but why did my federal tax dollars go to fund some random boat in Alaska that was never used. I don’t know enough about this project and it wasn’t clear to me in the article but who wanted this in the first place, and if it was the Alaskans, who did at least benefit from the shipbuilding, why should the rest of the states loose money from it?

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[QUOTE=LI_Domer;168531]… why should the rest of the states loose money from it?[/QUOTE]

Alaska? Appalachia by the sea. It’s the poster child for the “welfare state” and probably the most hypocritical bunch of rednecks who cash government checks to finance their life of independence on the wild frontier.

I know they probably get far more in fed money then they put into the system, but this ship is such a glaring and blatant abuse of this whole arrangement.

[QUOTE=LI_Domer;168543]I know they probably get far more in fed money then they put into the system, but this ship is such a glaring and blatant abuse of this whole arrangement.[/QUOTE]

It is just one that they couldn’t hide or define as something else.

It is interesting the way they redefined the “bridge to nowhere” as an airport access route rather than a pair of bridges south of town that led to land owned by some fatcat friends of state politicos who stood to get fat on logging with road access.

If that ridiculous boat could have been disguised as some arctic defense asset or something other than a boondoggle pile of rotting pork you can bet your ass it would have been.

[QUOTE=LI_Domer;168531]WTH, I’m fine with the Philippine Red Cross owning such a vessel, but why did my federal tax dollars go to fund some random boat in Alaska that was never used. I don’t know enough about this project and it wasn’t clear to me in the article but who wanted this in the first place, and if it was the Alaskans, who did at least benefit from the shipbuilding, why should the rest of the states loose money from it?[/QUOTE]

Welcome to pork barrel spending. It’s about a quarter of all federal spending and half the economy of Alaska. No one brought home the back like Ted Stevens.

[QUOTE=tugsailor;168549]Welcome to pork barrel spending. It’s about a quarter of all federal spending and half the economy of Alaska. No one brought home the back like Ted Stevens.[/QUOTE]

…and Ted of Alaska had good friends in the bayou too.

[QUOTE=tugsailor;168549]Welcome to pork barrel spending. It’s about a quarter of all federal spending and half the economy of Alaska. No one brought home the back like Ted Stevens.[/QUOTE]

And then there is WV Senator Robert Byrd and the NMC…

Yes the great coastal state of West Virginia. They have a long and proud Maritime Heritage.

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Hold on there son…a lot of vessels were built in West Virginia during WW Deuce. Places like Marietta, Point Pleasant and Wheeling all had major inland shipyards. My old command, the mv GALAXY was built by the Marietta Manufacturing Company in Pt Pleasant as the USS BARRICADE.

just because a state might be inland doesn’t necessarily mean it is landlocked.

just wow,so much animosity towards a state or is it plain ol jealousy

and then this bit is released

[B]Alaska Residents to Get Record Oil Payment[/B]

By Reuters 2015-09-16 23:49:00

Alaska will give each resident more than $2,000 next month as the annual payout from an oil wealth trust fund, a state revenue official said on Wednesday, a record amount despite the collapse in oil prices last year.

About 645,000 residents will receive the payout from The Alaska Permanent Fund, said Jerry Burnett, deputy commissioner for the Alaska Department of Revenue.

Alaska residents must have lived in the state an entire calendar year before becoming eligible to receive the money.

The payout will surpass the $1,884 doled out by the fund last year and exceed the record $2,069 paid in 2008, Burnett said. Payments began in 1982 with a $1,000 check to residents.

Alaska’s Permanent Fund was established by a constitutional amendment passed by voters in 1976 requiring a portion of state oil revenues to be put into a savings account to be available for the distant future, when North Slope oil fields are tapped out.

The payment to citizens is derived from a formula averaging the Permanent Fund earnings over a five-year period.

Global crude oil prices collapsed in late 2014 as global production exceeded demand, but the price of crude has less of an impact on the annual payments than how well the fund manages its $51 billion portfolio.

The fund benefited in 2014 from a surging stock market as well as real estate and private equity investments, Burnett said.

Continued low crude oil prices this year have helped to keep the unemployment rate in the state at 6.7 percent as of July, higher than the national rate as oil companies curtail production operations.

The annual payout from the fund is credited with keeping many low-income Alaskan families out of poverty.

The exact amount of the payment will be made public later this month. Checks will be put in the mail and direct deposits will be sent to bank accounts beginning on October 1.

why don’t Louisiana residents get a check for all the energy produced by the majors in the GoM? Why are only Alaskans entitled?

Interesting question that I’m sure has been asked by someone before but it would take more than $2000 a year to get me to move to LA. (Particularly south of I-10).

[QUOTE=c.captain;168944]why don’t Louisiana residents get a check for all the energy produced by the majors in the GoM? Why are only Alaskans entitled?[/QUOTE]

Probably because only Alaskans got enough votes to force the state to tax oil for that purpose and form a well managed investing fund to house it without appropriating it to pay other state expenses.

If the people in Louisiana got their shit together and pushed they could do that too.

The Alaska Permenant Fund is basically a sovereign wealth fund similar to those of other countries, such as Singapore and Norway.

Alaska was smart enough to to understand at the out set that the oil money was not going to last forever, so they started the Permenant fund.

Every state, and the U.S. Government, Should have a Permenant fund.

The State of Alabama uses their oil and gas proceeds for the Forever Wild program. Great program but currently, crooked ass politicians are trying to rape it.

I bet they’re all Ourbarn alumni…

[QUOTE=tugsailor;168966]Every state, and the U.S. Government, Should have a Permenant fund.[/QUOTE]

they certainly should!

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[QUOTE=Capt. Phoenix;168964]If the people in Louisiana got their shit together and pushed they could do that too.[/QUOTE]

as stoopid as we hold Alaskans to be, Louisianans are stoopider

I just hope there’s so many zeros in the amount I can’t count that high😆