Service resumed Thursday on the Anacortes-Friday Harbor-Sidney ferry with the MV Kitsap serving as a replacement vessel.
The route was cancelled on Wednesday after the 144-vehicle MV Hyak was pulled off the route for maintenance.
Washington State Ferries said in a statement that maintenance crews found a failure in one of the Hyak’s service generators. This has to be replaced and will keep the vessel in dock for up to two weeks. “Unfortunately, the vessel has bigger problems than anticipated,” Ian Sterling, Washington Ferries spokesman, said.
The 124-vehicle Kitsap will be serving that route in the meantime.
The Ferries service warns that because this ship has a smaller capacity, reservations might be overbooked on some sailings. It will be working with people holding reservations.
To accommodate people who already have reservations, that means there might be less stand-by room on the ferry. It’s possible that it might even be unavailable.
Washington Ferries urges customers to make reservations if they are able to.
Ferry service out of Sidney has been cancelled several times this season because of breakdowns with other vessels in the fleet. The Sidney ferry has been pulled away to fill in on the other routes.
“One of the first places we look for an alternate boat is that international run, as it is usually lighter utilized than other routes and allows us to move people that actually live in the San Juan Islands,” Sterling said.
“That’s what has happened several times this summer.”
The MV Chelan had been taken out of that international route once this summer for several hours because it became entangled in crab-pot lines.
“But we were able to get divers in the water and cut those off and get it back into service within a matter of hours,” he said.
