The Virginian-Pilot
©
NORFOLK
The two Hawaiian superferries docked at Lamberts Point now belong to the Navy.
The U.S. Department of Transportation transferred the vessels to the Navy on Jan. 20, through an interagency agreement, Lt. Cmdr. Alana Garas, a Navy spokeswoman, said in an email.
Congress gave the Navy the OK late last year to spend up to $35 million to acquire the ferries - the Alakai and the Huakai - from the Maritime Administration, part of the Department of Transportation. The Navy gave the administration $35 million as part of the deal, a spokeswoman for the agency confirmed Wednesday, adding that the transaction technically was not a sale.
Built to move cars and people among the islands of Hawaii, the ferries can cruise at 35 knots. Between 320 and 340 feet long, they each could carry 836 passengers and 282 cars. The Navy used the Huakai in relief efforts after the earthquake in Haiti in January 2010.
Congressional approval for the funding, included in a provision in the Defense Authorization Act of 2012, stated that the ferries would become Defense Department sealift vessels.
Merchant mariners employed by a private company under contract to the Navy's Military Sealift Command are aboard each vessel, the Navy said.
The ferries will remain at Lamberts Point until they can be moved into shipyards for conversion for Defense Department use, Meghan Patrick, a spokeswoman with the Sealift Command, said in an email.
The ferries will eventually be renamed by the Secretary of the Navy, Patrick said.
One of the ferries is headed for the Pacific.
The Navy had been interested in the ferries since July 2009, after a bankruptcy judge ruled that their owner - Hawaii Superferry Inc. - could abandon them to lenders owed nearly $159 million.
The Maritime Administration, which guaranteed the loans, moved them to Norfolk, where it bought the vessels at an auction on Sept. 30, 2010, on the steps of Norfolk's federal courthouse.
In June, the Maritime Administration put the two vessels up for sale on an "as is, where is" basis.
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If the Navy wants to help the area's transportation options,
it should consider building several loading/unloading docks and use the ferries to reduce traffic using the HRBT and Downtown and Midtown tunnels. It wouldn't cost near the money the private companies want for building new tunnels. It would be a "change of pace" for area drivers, and the added time it might take to "normally" get from one side to another would still be less than it now takes in early morning, late afternoon, and various other traffic jams. Charge a few dollars to ride the ferry, use that money to cover its operating costs, and any add'l monies could go toward supplementing funding for other transportation needs. Not a "simple fix," but another option.
I was going to say the same thing!!!
I was goint to say the same thing.
The tunnel backups are ridiculous.
How hard is it to build more lanes?
Are our elected representatives incompetent?
Use the ferries right now to alleviate traffic.
What is needed is a ten lane bridge at both the midtown and downtown tunnel locations.
Saying you need tunnels instead of bridges because the bridges might get blown up is STUPID. If you think they might get blown up, just station a couple dozen seals at each bridge.
Potential use?
Our tax dollars at work.
Double taxation
So taxpayers took a loss of $159 million on the sour loan through the Maritime Association, then taxpayers had to PAY AGAIN another $35 million to buy it back? Why couldn't this be transferred between inter-government agencies?