Kalakala gets a powerful push but still needs help

Six two-ton pistons cannibalized from a vintage 1934 engine that powered a dynamo in Logan, Utah, a near-twin of the Kalakala's power plant, arrived at the Depression-era ferry's North Lake Union moorage yesterday.


Pushing hard, Mike McNeil grimaces as he and trucker Chris Tarrats move one of six 4,000-pound pistons that will be used to rebuild the engines of the Kalakala, docked at Lake Union. Gilbert W. Arias / Seattle Post-Intelligencer Click for larger photo

Meanwhile, the board of directors overseeing attempts to restore the streamlined, art-deco ferry, which once was a world-famous icon of Seattle, acquired new private sector members intent on putting together a business plan to raise money.

"It's the one thing that needs to be done," as well as making full use of technology to get the word out and sell Kalakala-related products, said one of the new board members, David Ruble, 40.

Ruble is a principal member of Olympic Consulting Group, a software architecture and development firm.

Ruble was smitten by the Kalakala at the age of 4 when he rode on it -- so smitten, in fact, that in 1967 when it was offered for sale, he pestered his dad to buy it.

Dad didn't go for it.

Now, however, Ruble and others are working on a plan that would run the Kalakala Foundation as a non-profit group to preserve and protect the boat, while forming a for-profit management group of investors to keep it financially afloat.

"One of the smartest things Peter Bevis did was to trademark the name for licensing and merchandising. There is a huge potential," Ruble said, referring to the director of the Kalakala Foundation. Judging by the favorable response so far, "it can make a boatload of money."

Bevis, a Fremont sculptor who rescued the vessel from an Alaska mudflat where it had been deteriorating and forgotten as a fish-processor for 30 years, welcomes the help.

"Funding is dismal," he said.

Moorage alone is $38,000 in the red. Donations for T-shirts and other Kalakala gear immediately goes for insurance. Even one of two portable potties on board have been repossessed. In short, the vessel is nowhere near acquiring the more than $700,000 in donations needed to get into drydock for a hull inspection, allowing a federal grant to kick in.

While budget is dismal, the effort is rich in volunteers and well-wishers who seem to come out of nowhere in the nick of time to help restore the rusty vessel.

Yesterday afternoon, Bevis powered up a hot-wired forklift, running on borrowed batteries, to move the giant pistons, transported on a big rig donated for the trip by Roberts Trucking of Maple Valley.

"These pistons are irreplaceable," Bevis said, coaxing one of the huge, smooth steel parts from the truck, slowly depositing it on Kalakala's aft deck as volunteers handled a hydraulic dolly.

"There were only 13 of these engines made. The Kalakala's was the only one put into a boat. We'll eventually use the parts from the Logan engine to rebuild the Kalakala's, which was the biggest in the world in 1934," he said.

As luck would have it, Utah's Logan Light & Power Co. offered their six-cylinder Busch-Sulzer engine, built by the beer company during Prohibition, after stumbling across the ferry's Web site.

The West's energy crunch had signaled the demise of the engine Logan folks had kept in top working order for 66 years, replacing it with a gas turbine.

"The folks in Logan were pretty sad," Bevis said. He spent three-weeks of 16 hours days in April dismantling the engine that motorheads among Kalakala volunteers are itching to use.

"It was like butchering a great old dinosaur. These engines were the biggest of their era. You can feel the craftsmanship in the quality of the steel. These engines were so well put together," Bevis said.

P-I reporter Mike Barber can be reached at 206-448-8018 or mikebarber@seattlepi.com

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