Whoop Whoop WHOOP!

This incident is better if you imagine a WWII destroyer collision alarm.

Since 1927, before the beginings of the modern system, not a single fatal accident besmirched the famous Washington State Ferry system, making it one of the most relaxing and enjoyable forms of transportation around. Government owned, and carefully regulated, given to incidents but rarely accidents, it seems to be a model of efficiency and professionalism.

Which is why crawling out of a Honda-front seat doze to see the crew gathered around my car and putting on life jackets right before the ferry hit full reverse engines from full speed in the middle of Puget Sound was somewhat disconcerting.

On the passage before, an armed Coastie zodiak-style escort ran off course suddenly and chased after a huge white shower-stall yacht which had rather stupidly crossed the massive ferry's course, leading a teenage girl in the next seat to say "Go GET 'EM!" It was indeed hard not to imagine the twin .50s raking a few warning shots in the path of that bloated ass-peddling dandy scow. A lubberly move on yacht-boy's part.

This had previously been the most exciting thing that ever happened on the ferry.

But now the huge ship shuddered and shaked to a halt from a speed near 18 knots, like braking an office building, and the forward props churned up enormous clouds of water, creating a giant bow wave. More people with life jackets keep gathering around my Civic. But they weren't saying anything. My curiosity could be considered piqued.

Almost regrettably, it was nothing: a drill, getting the stop at full speed around 55 seconds (amazing!), which was probably related to the following incident.

Ferry officials blame the (Dec 20) near-collision on communication errors and on Jamison not acting quickly enough to move away from the bigger boat. The Wenatchee is 460 feet long and weighs 3,000 tons, and the container-filled Knud Mærsk measures 1,044 feet and weighs between 50,000 and 70,000 tons.

According to the report, the ferry had the right of way, but Jamison said she would reduce speed so the freighter could pass.

At one point the pilot of the freighter said, "I can see your red light," but Jamison thought he said he was turning right, the report said.

So "Starboard" is still a good word. Mostly the vast freighter screwed up - there are often 2000 people on the ferry, with both the right of way and a sort of moral authority.

I consider the drill warranted.

Fun stuff: Here again is SEALINKS, which displays the real time marine traffic in Puget Sound, thanks to the Viceroy. (Sealinks itself also has real-time traffic in Oregon, Boston, and Europe.) If the ferry runs into anything big you can watch it live here. Minor fun can be had by finding a vessel name on their transponder, and googling it; you get a fair picture of the ships and cargos moving around the world.

And here is the Knud Maersk tracking map page.