The AMHS ferry Hubbard was mentioned as being involved in the response to the capsize of the F/V Wind Walker in Icy Strait.
Did a search and found this, from May 2023:
From the article:
The 280-foot Hubbard took more than four years to come into service after construction had finished because crew quarters had not been part of the ship’s original design. Coast Guard regulations limit ferry crews to 12 hours of work per day.
Alaska state government has always been even more corrupt, inefficient, and wasteful than even the federal government.
Attempts to build ships in Alaska are always years behind schedule and $$$ tens of millions over budget.
Shipbuilding in Alaska has got to be tough, and expensive. Weather is a constant hassle, and when the boundaries are pushed to get some painting done, the result is sub-par, and the paint rep has all kinds of excuses for why the paint job is crap. Steel and everything has to be brought in by barges and ships, and those union sailors make a fortune.
Appalachia by the sea.
Any worse conditions than in NW Europe, especially Scandinavia?
FYI: Ulstein Shipyard at 62N latitude:
No, I’m sure shipbuilding is a challenge in NW Europe as well. My intended comparison was between a yard in Alaska and one in the lower 48.
The Alaska class was constructed to service shoreside infrastructure that wasn’t even completed. AMHS has always been a political football. It’s unfortunate because the ferry system keeps the coastal communities of Alaska connected, and facilitates commerce. With all of the aging vessels in the fleet it was very short sighted to construct the Hubbard and the Tazlina without crew quarters. If you’ve got time, google up what happened with the fast ferries that were once part of AMHS.
That lack of crew quarters thing is pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. Remember way back when the US government and the Alaska state government came together and built the Susitna?
According to MarineLink the late design change was because of a change of the planned route,
Intended to operate as day boats to serve the AMHS Lynn Canal route between Juneau, Haines and Skagway, the 280-foot vessels are classed ABS Ro/Ro and carry 300 passengers and 53 vehicles via both a bow and stern door.
But by the time the ferries were delivered, AMHS had decided it wanted to use the vessels to service longer routes, meaning crew quarters had to be added in accordance with U.S. Coast Guard regulations.
It should have been obvious from the outset that plans and needs might change. It never made any sense to build big ferries without crew quarters, and the built in option to operate more than 12 hours a day if needed.
Now the cost of retrofitting crew quarters is absurdly high.
It would make more sense now to just put that money toward a new properly designed ferry to be built in Washington or Oregon.
Alaska remains the largest, most mismanaged , and most wasteful collection of Federal welfare programs in the US.
Not so much anymore, they build ships under roof.
Even Meyer Shipyard in Papenburg, Germany:
I reread the article in the OP, on the first pass I’d missed the fact that the Hubbard had no crew quarters when built. I assumed it was a matter of the quarters being insufficient to meet the COI required crew.
The ferry was designed and built as a day boat so no crew quarters at all apparently,
I can’t imagine why in the world they wouldn’t include crew spaces on a vessel of that scale. It’s like not including running lights because we’re only operating during the day. What about delivery/repositioning/shipyard trips? I delivered a ferry one time that had no crew quarters, and it was a rough few nights on a steel deck in a sleeping bag. It seems pretty short-sighted.
