EDITORIAL: Historic ferry deserved a better ending

Aug. 27—The Tourist No. 2 was worth trying to save.

Built nearly a century ago, the historic, wooden-hulled ferry took passengers and vehicles across the Columbia River between Astoria and Washington state before the Astoria Bridge opened in 1966.

The ferry, which had a cameo as a minelayer at the mouth of the river during World War II, had a second life as the Islander of Pierce County on Puget Sound and a third life as the M/V Kirkland hosting cruises on Lake Washington.

After a fire in 2010, Argosy Cruises chose not to rebuild and sold the ferry to a colorful captain fond of maritime relics.

One of the gifts of Astoria's revival over the past few decades is the emphasis on historic preservation. Our city has tried to preserve authenticity and resisted the temptation to scrub away imperfections. Some of our favorite things — the old White Star Cannery boiler near Uniontown; Big Red, the net shed in Uppertown — are wreckage.

So we shared in the spirit behind the local campaign to purchase the Tourist No. 2 and bring it back to Astoria for events and riverfront cruises, even though the ferry was damaged and long past its heyday.

Experts waved bright red flags about the expense of improving the vessel for U.S. Coast Guard certification and the lack of maritime experience among the people involved in the campaign. But there was a sense of possibility when the old ferry pulled into the 17th Street Dock in 2016, the 50th anniversary of the Astoria Bridge.

That possibility slowly drained over the next few years as the nonprofit Astoria Ferry Group was unable to raise enough money to pay for the restoration project. Estimates for the work ranged from $500,000 to as high as $2 million to $3 million.

By 2019, the nonprofit declared that the project was in a "hold-steady pattern" and that the owner would mostly be taking charge.

From that point, the headlines only got worse. In 2020, the ferry abruptly left Pier 39 — towing a dock used for boarding — and relocated near the Sixth Street viewing platform. In late July, the Tourist No. 2 took on water and partially sank, spilling fuel into the river.

With the state looking to recoup some of the costs of a recovery estimated at over $1 million, we understand this might not be the most convenient time for the prominent local people involved in the Astoria Ferry Group to raise their hands and remind everyone of their roles. But a bit more contrition is in order.

Abandoned and derelict vessels pose significant financial and environmental problems.

The R/V Hero, an old wooden research vessel that sank at Bay Center, Washington, in 2017, is costing taxpayers an estimated $2.5 million to recover.

Willamette Week reported this month on Ross Island on the Willamette River — describing it as the Portland metro area's epicenter of junk boats.

In Oregon, the Department of State Lands will ask for $40 million in the next state budget process to remove hazardous vessels from waterways. Without dedicated funding, the department said money for cleanup comes out the Common School Fund.

"Oregon's schoolkids foot the bill for cleaning up abandoned and derelict vessels," Vicki Walker, the director of the Department of State Lands, said in a statement. "Every dollar spent cleaning up these messes is a dollar out of the classroom."

In our view, the lesson from the Tourist No. 2 is not that people shouldn't dream big and take risks to preserve our history. It's that people should take responsibility when it becomes obvious the dream is over.

Instead of spin like the "hold-steady pattern" and finger-pointing about ownership, we wished the people involved had made a collective appeal to the community over the past few years to take the ferry out of the water.

The idea to make the Tourist No. 2 an attraction on land — like the pilot boat Peacock outside the Columbia River Maritime Museum — had been part of the conversation since the day the ferry returned home six years ago.

One suggestion was even to place the ferry in the empty pit at Heritage Square. That seemed like dark humor at the time, since the City Council had just rejected a new library with the potential for housing at Heritage Square.

Today, with the Tourist No. 2 dead in the river, and the empty pit still at Heritage Square, it's not so funny.