WIND!!!WAVES!!! Ferry gets Whumped! <<PICS!>>

[SeaKaye12]

These were sent to me by a friend in the Puget Sound. On Thursday October 18th Western Washington was hit with a 50+ MPH wind storm. He made his way down to the Mukilteo Lighthouse Park to witness the Mukilteo to Clinton ferry taking a pounding. These Issaquah 130 Class ferries are over 300 feet long and 78 feet wide and weight in at 2477 tons (4,954,000 lbs) unloaded......

During storms like this the crew plots a course which puts the ferry in the least vulnerable position, but at some point they have to change course, and when they did Puget Sound made up for lost time.

After this run the ferry system stopped running at full capacity and ran 1/2 empty for the rest of the night.

Note that there are no longer cars visible in the last shot. I'm sure they were washed into the cars behind them

Each shot was taken 0.3 seconds apart hand held at 320mm's.

Be Glad your car wasn't on there....and hopefully no small craft were out there that day...

Chuck

 

[2Smokinya]

Re: WIND!!!WAVES!!! Ferry gets Whumped! <<PICS!>>

Looks like a normal day out on Buzzards Bay.

 

[QC]

Re: WIND!!!WAVES!!! Ferry gets Whumped! <<PICS!>>

I don't see any cars in any shot

 

[CharlieB]

Re: WIND!!!WAVES!!! Ferry gets Whumped! <<PICS!>>

I really miss living around The Sound.

You know, motorcycles are always allowed/required to load/unload first!

Glad I wasn't out with my Harley for that ride.

Now to pinch these pics to forward to some new friends that haven't a clue how the water can get mean in a hurry

Pass my 'Thanks' on to the photog.

 

[SeaKaye12]

Re: WIND!!!WAVES!!! Ferry gets Whumped! <<PICS!>>

QC....here's the other shot that shows at least one car (a white one...)

The forum here has a limit of 6 pics per post.....I originally had nine...so these three had to go.... Here they are....now you have all 9.

 

[QC]

Re: WIND!!!WAVES!!! Ferry gets Whumped! <<PICS!>>

Ahhhh, the line about the cars caught my attention and I wanted to see some carnage . . .

 

[Bigprairie1]

Re: WIND!!!WAVES!!! Ferry gets Whumped! <<PICS!>>

Obviously in B.C we share a lot of this water with the U.S. Our BC ferry system used to run the (big) boats with the open bow/stern arrangement similar to that shown in these photos until that incident about 15years (?) ago in Europe when that ferry took on a big wave through its open bow, downflooded and capsized killing/trapping a fair amount of people (anyone recall that?). After that they (BC Ferries) installed bow/stern doors that have to be closed during travel.
It used to be kind of cool to look out those big doors through the ends of the open ferry...no more tho', except on the little sheltered runs.
Very Cool Photos...it would be interesting to find out the kind of damaged those vehicles sustained.

 

[Hashi]

Re: WIND!!!WAVES!!! Ferry gets Whumped! <<PICS!>>

Nice pics! Amazing that they still operated the ferry in under those conditions. Skipper must be one brave dude!

 

[rthomas]

Re: WIND!!!WAVES!!! Ferry gets Whumped! <<PICS!>>

that ferry route used to be part of my commute, there was probly 10 days a year when its simaler to that. when they shut down due to weather they will dump the last load at the dock and run the boats out in the channel until the weather settles.