Old San Francisco Bay ferries don’t die, they just find new waters

When Richmond residents retire, they might travel the world or settle somewhere else. When San Francisco Bay ferries retire from the fleet, they also go to new places. 

The motor vessel (MV) Solano is the latest ferry to retire from the fleet. The 91-ton ship, built in 2004, boasted an onboard bar and a capacity for 320 passengers. It regularly ran with the SF Bay Ferry service, connecting cities like Richmond and Oakland to San Francisco. It was retired in 2019, partly because older ferries were about to face stricter state emissions regulations. Although it stopped servicing the Bay Area, MV Solano has been shipped to Seattle to work for Kitsap Transit. 

As the Water Emergency Transportation Authority, the agency that operates the SF Bay Ferry, looks to comply with stricter air standards and rising maintenance costs, its diesel-powered fleet is slowly being phased out.

Lynda Lambert, a spokesperson with the California Air Resource Board, the state’s air regulatory agency,  stressed the importance of the new emissions rules. 

“With the amendments, the diesel soot reduction expected by 2038 is equal to eliminating 246,000 heavy-duty diesel trucks traveling from LA to Sacramento every day for a year,” she said. 

WETA owns 17 vessels with an average service life of just over 12 years old. The average cost of WETA’s latest ferries is about $16.4 million, meaning the agency is incentivized to use them for as long as possible. Sometimes, the cost of refurbishing a vessel is greater than purchasing a new ferry, so WETA will attempt to sell the ship to another operator. Ships like the MV Solano, which sold for $1 million,  were bought with federal grants that also covered maintenance, and any remaining grant money was transferred along with the sold ships.

Kitsap Transit picked up the MV Solano because its size and operating speed fit with the fast ferry service the agency runs on Puget Sound, said Sanjay Bhatt, a Kitsap Transit spokesperson.

“It has been well received by the public,” Bhatt said. “We plan to use it for as long as the vessel is operationally reliable and viable.” 

WETA’s retired MV Encincal has not had such a happy ending. Built in 1985 with a capacity of 395 passengers, it connected Oakland and Alameda with San Francisco until it was retired in 2018 and replaced with the cleaner MV Cetus, a 400-passenger vessel operating on a slightly cleaner diesel engine. The MV Encinal was sold to Allen Marine Tours for $2.1 million to be refurbished and conduct whale-watching expeditions. However, the Encinal was never converted to a whale-watching ship, and is now listed for sale by the brokerage service Pinnacle Marine Association for nearly $600,000.

The MV Vallejo was retired around the same time. It was a slightly smaller version of the MV Encinal and originally purchased by WETA for  $3.2 million. Like its sister vessel, the MV Vallejo was also sold to Allen Marine Tours for whale-watching purposes but has yet to set sail.

The only retired vessel that has completely stopped operating is the MV Harbor Bay Express II. In 2015, years after the vessel was retired by WETA and sold to a private operator, it was eventually surrendered to the United States Coast Guard for not having a valid certificate of inspection. 

Dawn of electric ferries

As WETA retires vessels, it is making way for faster and cleaner electric ferries. In December, the San Francisco Bay Ferry’s board of directors approved the purchase of three electric ferries, with the first one expected to join the fleet in 2027. 

The new, 149-passenger ships at first will make shorter trips to destinations like Treasure Island. Eventually, 400-passenger electric vessels will replace the oldest diesel ships, operating shorter routes such as Oakland and Alameda. But routes from Richmond and Vallejo will still have diesel ships for the foreseeable future, until the technology advances to enable those longer trips, said Thomas Hall, director of WETA operations. 

For Hall, the service offers much to be excited about.

“I love seeing happy passengers and seeing people experience the bay for the first time, if they’re from out of the area, or they’re a local kid that’s just never been on the water,” he said.

The prospect of those passengers getting to experience high-speed ferries, he said, “gets me up in the morning and makes me excited to work.” 

(Top photo: The MV Mare Island is docked for maintenance, by Andres J. Larios)

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