WSF: Captain during ferry crash resigns; crew drug and alcohol tests come back clean
The captain of the ferry Cathlamet during a collision that caused significant damage to the vessel last week has resigned from Washington State Ferries, according to an email that went out to agency staff on Monday.
WSF agency head Patty Rubstello also told staff in her message that drug and alcohol tests of the vessel’s crew came back clear, noting that an investigation into the incident on Thursday was ongoing and would take "some time." The captain of the vessel was not identified in the message.
“Safety continues to be our number one priority for both employees and customers and I’m thankful that in the history of WSF there has never been a fatality due to a collision,” she wrote. “We’ll continue to work closely with our federal partners to determine exactly what happened and to prevent it from occurring again.”
What led up to the crash remains unclear. Washington State Ferries, the Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board are all investigating the incident.
It’s estimated that repairs to the Cathlamet after its collision near the Fauntleroy dock will cost “well into the millions of dollars” and take months to complete, WSF spokesperson Ian Sterling said Monday.
More: Service restored to Triangle route after morning crash into ferry dock piling
Sterling said the state’s preliminary estimate is that the vessel sustained around $5-7 million in damage, emphasizing that the number was only an early “back of the napkin” calculation. Damage to the pilings the ferry struck will probably cost into the “hundreds of thousands” of dollars, he said.
Following the collision on Thursday, crew members were tested for drugs and alcohol, a standard practice in such incidents.
“Anything reportable, we go in and test the entire crew in a big incident like this,” Sterling said.
Describing the incident, Sterling said the vessel came in to the West Seattle dock “too fast and completely off course” and struck the outside edge of a “dolphin,” pilings in the water that serve as a guide for captains as they navigate in to the dock. The ferry had been heading toward an anchored sailboat, and had it not struck the structure “good and hard,” Cathlamet would have ended up on the shore, Sterling said.
“Something went really wrong here,” he said. “They hit going fast and hit on the wrong side.”
Following the crash, the vessel was brought to the state’s maintenance facility in Bainbridge Island’s Eagle Harbor. Eventually, Cathlamet will likely be taken to a shipyard for repairs, Sterling said.
Sterling knew of one person who wanted to be checked out medically after the crash, but, remarkably, there were no serious injuries, he said.
“If you saw the damage to the boat, there should have been fatalities,” he said. “It’s really shocking stuff.”
Nathan Pilling is a reporter covering Bainbridge Island, North Kitsap and Washington State Ferries for the Kitsap Sun. He can be reached at 360-792-5242, nathan.pilling@kitsapsun.com or on Twitter at @KSNatePilling.
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This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Washington State Ferries: Captain of crashed Cathlamet resigns
