Superior ferry coming to MAT-SU in 2008

KETCHIKAN -- The Matanuska-Susitna Borough will be getting a ferry that will be like no other and that has stretched the minds of the best naval engineers in the world.

Co-Inventor Lew Madden first sketched the original concept while riding a catamaran tour boat in Prince William Sound. As the ice chunks drifted into the pontoons, Madden got the idea for a variable draft ferry, one that raises and lowers its deck, and that could also break ice. Three years and more than 20 iterations later, Madden's novel idea is now taking shape in steel. The ferry will not only be the first to vary its draft, but also the first catamaran to break ice in the world.

"This project scares a lot of pretty fearless people," said Madden, who at the time was a Program Manager with Lockheed Martin Corp., a top defense contractor in the nation. "But when this is pulled off, it'll be something."

The 195-foot long, multi-functional ship will operate year-round and be capable of traveling through high seas and ice. It will carry at least 20 cars and 100 passengers at up to 20 knots and then on arrival be able to raise and lower its deck to operate from link spans or boat ramps.

At the Ketchikan Shipyard Thursday Aug. 24, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski gave the $44 million ship its ceremonial start to construction by signing the keel plate, a nod to shipbuilding tradition. The signed plate will be a permanent fixture on the ship. Murkowski is the ship's sponsor. The Senator donned a welder's hood and, with some help, traced a blue-hot flame over her signature in chalk. The words "Senator Lisa Murkowski Alaska" stood up in cursive, steel relief and drew applause and camera flashes from among the 130 onlooking guests in the machine shop. Murkowski was born in this town of Ketchikan. Calling the "guys in hard hats modern day heroes," she made sure to let the shipyard workers of the company, Alaska Ship & Drydock, know that they have become a part of Alaska's "radical new destiny."

"If Alaska is to ever overcome its past as a resource colony for the rest of the country it really is essential that we build this corps of highly skilled workers," Murkowski said. "And this shipyard is certainly showing the way in Southeast Alaska."

The present shipyard in Ketchikan today is more a repair yard for state ferries, state research ships, and fishing vessels. But with some $65 million in state and federal investment pending, the yard is undergoing a renaissance as a shipbuilder and as an employer in a town that lost 1,000 jobs when the pulp mills closed here 10 years ago. The project could create up to 200 specialized jobs. As Doug Ward, the director of development for Alaska Ship & Drydock tells it, the expansion signals the mobilization of an advanced manufacturing capability in Alaska.

A second floating 2,500-ton drydock for this yard is under construction in China as part of a contract with the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, the state's business investment arm. Workers broke ground here the same week on a $2 million ship-module fabrication building. Also, up to $1 million will be invested in a laydown area for the ship's modules and a parking lot. Madden said the steel will be precision laser cut. The parts of the ship will arrive numbered, much like a child's toy model ready for assembly-- "800 tons of steel with some assembly required." It will be welded together using cutting-edge technology such as an automated welder and the weld positioner, a large device that rotates heavy steel modules 360 degrees.

Murkowski calls this ship of many firsts a bellwether project. The Senator is not alone when she proclaims that maritime interests nationwide and possibly worldwide will begin looking to Alaska for expertise in shipbuilding.

"A lot of shipyards, the 'majors' would hesitate to take on a project as innovative and complex as this ship," Co-Inventor Madden said. Madden is also the Owners Representative for the MAT-SU Borough.

About a year ago, the Office of Naval Research flew a team here to personally woo Randy Johnson, president of Alaska Ship & Drydock, because they saw that his company, though smaller and geographically distant from typical manufacturing yards, had the drive, the will, and the innovative smarts it would take.

"I want to assure you that MV Susitna/Sea Lifter has our attention," Johnson said at the ceremony.

The project has also formed the unlikely collaboration of far-flung partners: the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, known to Outsiders mostly for its oversized vegetables; and Ketchikan, a cruise ship destination, located off the road system. These two local governments are teaming with the likes of Guido Perla & Associates, Inc., one of the nation's best known naval architectural firms; the Office of Naval Research in Virginia, and Maryland defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp., which helped revolutionize the aerospace industry.

The stable, reliable ferry for citizens is also designed as something that would seem contrary to itself, as both a fast and an amphibious vehicle transport for the military.

The Motor Vessel Susitna, as it will be named, probably couldn't have been built 50 years ago, Madden said. The computational tools and advanced materials of today didn't exist. Even today, it has been a designer's conundrum. Engineers like to build ships that are optimized for a single task. This one breaks the rules.

"It's an omnivore," Madden said. "It's not optimized for any one task, but it has a wide range of tasks it can do, and that's what makes it useful. It can work in deep seas, it can work in rough waters, it can break ice, it can work in shallow waters and go up to the beach. There's no other ship in the world that can do that."

The combination of these diverse operational features in one ship, is why the engineering headaches recur.

"There have been a lot of brick walls that we have hit, but we just use a bigger sledgehammer," said naval architect Guido Perla. In the 27-year history of Perla's company, Guido Perla & Associates, Inc., this ship has been the toughest challenge, he said at a reception for the ship. Perla's Seattle-based company is known for always taking jobs that others say cannot be done. "It's better to be wrong than average," his dad taught him.

Among the structural, mechanical, and engineering challenges, Perla said no one has made a SWATH-type vehicle that breaks ice because, he said, it wasn't thought practical. A SWATH is a small area, twin-hulled ship. When the small hulls glide through water, the waterplane is small and hence the deck is very stable. The sea doesn't affect the ship as much as it does a large waterplane ship such as a barge, which moves to every wave. The trouble with the SWATH ferry idea, however, is because the ship doesn't have a broad waterplane it is "tender" and tends to tip when weight is added, so engineering has to take care of that. Ice is another challenge.

Perla's company and Lockheed Martin actually came out with a hull shape that works well in shallow ice and in many ways is better than other icebreakers, Perla said.

"Maybe now all the people will start following us or maybe they'll still think us nuts," said Perla, who speaks Spanish and Italian and English.

The ship is capable of transiting first year sea ice that is two feet thick. Ice breaking is achieved by up-lift forces from the bow of the demi-hulls when operating in the deep draft SWATH mode rather than by the down force used to break ice by more conventional ice breaking vessels.

He said the design and construction of the ship will be pioneering. But the list of firsts truly keeps stacking up.

Because the ship is the first of its kind, the standards and regulations as normally set up by the U.S. Coast Guard and ship-classifying societies didn't exist. New standards had to be made. Additionally, new equipment will have to be designed, as well, because much of it isn't coming off the shelves. Even the federal paperwork to make it happen had to forge new territory. Office of Naval Research Senior Contracting Officer Margo Graves pioneered a new type of agreement in which the Navy could invest in a project that the MAT-SU Borough would take title to.

Rear Admiral William E. Landay III, chief of Naval Research, said the ship could become the Navy's next generation of ships.

"One of our challenges is we'll sometimes build what to us is a prototype vessel like this and we'll go out to operate it for six months or a year and learn a lot from it and then we don't know what to do with it. And so frequently they end up on the scrap heap somewhere or tied up.
What's excited us about this is the fact that the Borough is very interested in it. So we'll continue to get information as the Borough operates it, but there's an end result to this. ... It's the first time we tried to do it this way," Landay said.

ONR gains by having an extensive test and analysis program that will monitor operations and structural loads on the M/V Susitna. Madden describes Cook Inlet, with its extreme tides and broken ice, as a unique lab for the ship. "You could operate this ship as a military ship in one whole war and not stress it as much as in Cook Inlet. So that's why the Navy is interested. The Borough operates it, and the Navy gets the benefits, stuff it couldn't pay for."

At the ceremony, Matanuska-Susitna Borough Mayor Tim Anderson told the crowd, "Having this ship provide that two and a half miles of service is going to change the whole nature of Cook Inlet."

Indeed, there is no ferry service for Upper Cook Inlet, where most of the state's population lives. The Susitna Ferry might one day take Anchorage or MAT-SU sport fishermen to Homer or Kenai and Kenai folks to Anchorage. It will provide a commuter service just across the Knik Arm for Anchorage and Port MacKenzie, where a large company has expressed interest in a sizeable manufacturing project. It could also operate as a rescue vehicle.

Over the past three years, MAT-SU Borough Manager John Duffy and Mayor Anderson have repeatedly advocated for the ferry at the nation's Capitol and delved into technology that was foreign to them. U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens backed the idea, so, too, did Congressman Don Young.

The MAT-SU's Port Commission has been an unwavering supporter of the project as well. What Port Commissioner Bishop Buckle got out of attending the keel-laying ceremony was a belief that there's a future for Alaska in the shipbuilding industry, he said. "It wasn't a two peanut affair. All the major experts in the shipbuilding industry were there saying we have a future."

Assemblywoman Cindy Bettine looks forward to the ferry serving her constituents. Residents in nearby Big Lake could take the ferry to Anchorage in a fraction of the time it takes to drive existing highways.

"It's wonderful that the MAT-SU Borough has been able to collaborate with the Office of Naval Research to get our first ferry at such a minimal cost to the Borough," Bettine said.

Among other funding, the Federal Transit Administration is providing about $17 million for the ferry terminal buildings, the Anchorage and MAT-SU landings, and the engineering, design, and furnishings aboard the ferry.

The M/V Susitna is expected to take to the sea for the first time in the spring of 2008. The Matanuska-Susitna Borough may become the owner of the technologically superior ferry in the summer of 2008.

For more information contact Public Affairs Manager Patty Sullivan at (907) 745-9577.
Photos and a ferry illustration will be posted on the Web site at www.matsugov.us
Radio reporters, multiple audio cuts are available, some will appear on the Web.