The World’s Most Ridiculous Ship Is Up For Sale [UPDATE]

Maritime News
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I just realized with this hull, form SUSITNA would make a wonder floating trash picker upper. If you got the vessel cheap enough and a contract with a major port to keep the harbor swept of used condoms you could make a tidy little living. Anybody want to be in the garbage scow business with me?

“The world’s only planing, beaching, swath hulled ferry built at a hideously great expense ($80M+?) to the US Navy for a route to nowhere and a service that nobody wants”, is up for sale. At least that’s how “c.captain”, aka the U.S.-flag’s toughest supporter, describes it.

UPDATE as of 1 Feb 2013 The ship is now being offered for free to any government entity which will take it, or for dirt cheap to the commercial sector

The vessel, named the MV Susitna, was constructed in 2010 at former Alaska Ship & Drydock in Ketchikan (now Vigor) at the request of the Office of Naval Research who was looking to test new designs that may someday work as military vessels. When construction began, the Susitna was to be owned and operated as a ferry in Alaska for the Matanuska-Susitna (Mat-Su) Borough providing service between Anchorage and Port Mackenzie while being assessed by the ONR. The only problem, however, was that there were no ferry terminals and the vessel never entered service. So now it’s up for sale!

The MV Susitna is unique in a number of ways and actually quite interesting. In the end it just didn’t work.

The design for the “expeditionary craft” was created by Guido Perla & Associates, Inc (GPA) and is based on a concept created by Lockheed Martin. It is a ABS-certified “E-Craft” that measures 59 meters in length and is capable of carrying 129 passengers, plus 20 vehicles or one tractor-trailer rig. The vessel also incorporates lift technology that will allow the ferry to change from the Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull (SWATH) mode to barge mode by lowering or raising its center deck. The vessel also built with an ice strengthened hull (the first-ever for a SWATH hull) and is beachable.

But what possibly could the Susitna be used for? We’re not sure, but someone mentioned that Shell fits the buyers profile. Who knows though, the E-Craft could be yours for an unspecified price. Check out the listing HERE.

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That would be a good cover. I say this could be the c.captain marine command and control vessel.

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[QUOTE=Fraqrat;97267]That would be a good cover. I say this could be the c.captain marine command and control vessel.[/QUOTE]

MAN! You are DAMNED GOOD! How’d you figure that out so fast?

I will say that being such a DAMNED GOOD member of the c.captain commando team, I’ll let you be my chief. $50 bucks a day for your bunk and grub ok for you to pay?

Btw, I still need a powered dorsal turret with twin 50’s out of a B-17 or B-24 in case anyone has one sitting in their garage they aren’t using?

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WILE E. COYOTE…You GENIUS you!

We’ll get SUSTINA and use her to go after Paul Watson. We’ll start a non for profit to rid the earth of floating BOZO and get the gummint to give the boat to us!

It’ll be perfect for us…afterall, Sea Shepard has that effing stoopid BRIGIT BIDET!

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[QUOTE=“c.captain;97274”]WILE E. COYOTE…You GENIUS you!

We’ll get SUSTINA and use her to go after Paul Watson. We’ll start a non for profit to rid the earth of floating BOZO and get the gummint to give the boat to us!

It’ll be perfect for us…afterall, Sea Shepard has that effing stoopid BRIGIT BIDET![/QUOTE]

What would you call her? They got the Steve Irwin and Bob Barker. You have to come up with a Better name than SUSTINA! !

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[QUOTE=PR-9;97284]What would you call her? They got the Steve Irwin and Bob Barker. You have to come up with a Better name than SUSTINA! ![/QUOTE]

CAPTAIN AHAB…of course…

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she’ll be the DEATHMOBILE of course!

1000×562 55.7 KB

RAMMING SPEED!

I want to be D-Day Simpson when I grow up!

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Shouldn’t it be just the opposite. Sell it cheap to any government and free to the commercial sector. I mean didn’t the working class already flip the bill already.

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It will probably end up as a training vessel at KP.

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They’ll have towing, dp, high speed ferries and ice breaking! How will any school compete!

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I think now might be a good time for c.captain to submit an offer!
http://www.adn.com/article/20150514/heavy-rains-damage-mothballed-mat-su-ferrys-engines

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GOOD LORD! I thought this piece of SHYTE had been scrapped already?

Heavy rains damage mothballed Mat-Su ferry’s engines

Zaz Hollander May 14, 2015

PALMER – The Matanuska-Susitna Borough’s high-tech but never-used passenger ferry suffered serious engine damage during heavy rains in Southeast Alaska earlier this year and will need repairs before it runs again.

Three of the ferry’s four engines don’t work, borough officials say.

The repairs should come in at “less than $1 million,” Borough Manager John Moosey said Thursday. The ferry is insured, but the policy comes with a $250,000 deductible.

So paying for repairs could be a tall order for the already cash-strapped borough as it wrangles with a difficult budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which starts July 1. Budget talks this month revealed a proposed property tax hike amid an $11.9 million deficit and uncertain state contributions.

“This is just not a simple ‘let’s get it fixed’ issue,” Moosey said Thursday of the ferry.

Borough administrators did not publicly announce the ferry’s status but confirmed it this week after being contacted by Alaska Dispatch News.

The 195-foot M/V Susitna, originally billed as the world’s only ice-breaking catamaran, was designed as a half-size prototype of a U.S. Navy double-hulled beach landing craft. Refitted as a ferry in Ketchikan, the Susitna is capable of holding up to 129 passengers and 20 vehicles.

But it’s been berthed in Ketchikan’s Ward Cove ever since the borough took ownership in 2011. And now the vessel doesn’t even run.

Heavy rains that hit Southeast in February flowed down the smokestacks and into the exhaust manifold and to the engine cylinders, according to borough port director Marc Van Dongen.

Crews discovered the water-damaged engines a few weeks later during a monthly check, Van Dongen said.

“When they went to start the engines they wouldn’t start,” he said. “Only one of four started.”

The borough brought in a factory-certified representative from the company that made the engines, the port director said; the insurance company that covers the ferry sent an adjuster.

The discovery of major engine problems is the latest in a long run of bad news for the star-crossed ferry.

The Susitna never made it into passenger service between Anchorage and Port MacKenzie as intended after funding – and political support for an Anchorage landing – dried up. The borough has failed to find a buyer or even another government entity to take it away for free, though officials say there continues to be interest in the ferry. Last year, the Federal Transit Administration demanded the borough pay back $12.3 million in grants.

While the borough got the Susitna for free from the Navy, costs are mounting. Ward Cove costs added up to $1.2 million as of October 2013, though the Assembly later cut back on maintenance to lower monthly charges to just under $30,000. The borough expects to spend $709,000 on the ferry through June and projects spending another $527,000 in the next fiscal year – not counting repair costs.

Moosey said the borough is currently in negotiations with the insurance company. He doesn’t plan to bring any ferry repair request to the borough Assembly until after they approve a budget.

He may meet with resistance. One Assembly member, Vern Halter, has already asked for an analysis of scrapping the ferry. Another, Ron Arvin, has historically voted against even paying the monthly fees to store the Susitna at Ward Cove.

For now, Van Dongen said, there are “old Alaska tarps” atop the stacks to keep out water.

He’s got four potentially interested parties that want to check out the ferry, he said. “But if you can’t even start the engine, we can’t even show it to them.”

So the STOOPID PHUCKERS forget to put 5gallon buckets over the stacks! Sheer Wile E. Coyote Genius I say!

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Ha even toothless “bug pickers” remember to put a 5 gallon bucket on their lobstah boat every night! The buckets are even half melted to prove it!

Maybe it’s a sign of the ingenious naval engineering that did not design stacks to have some water resistance.

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It’s insured. Why hasn’t that thing had an “accident” while 20 miles offshore?

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[QUOTE=c.captain;162883]So the STOOPID PHUCKERS forget to put 5gallon buckets over the stacks! Sheer Wile E. Coyote Genius I say![/QUOTE]

As an old Alaska hand you should know that unless they got a federal bucket acquisition grant, no buckets would ever show up. Even if one of the local geniuses could figure out that rain water might eventually reach the other end of the unbucketed pipe, unless there was federal government funding available for the bucket installation phase of the project it wouldn’t happen.

Appalachia by the sea … makes the bayou look good sometimes.

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[QUOTE=txwooley;162897]It’s insured. Why hasn’t that thing had an “accident” while 20 miles offshore?[/QUOTE]

They can’t secure financing to pay the deductible.

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So are we to assume these geniusses destroyed THREE.engines before they realized the cylinders were full of water? Just picture this happening!

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“We’re out of ether! Go call the office.”

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Wouldn’t there be a hideous bang cranking an engine filled with water?

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Trash bags and duct tape?