Historic Kalakala must find new moorage or face fines

Now the Kalakala has gone 50 feet too far, city officials say, and the historic -- if rusty -- bit of maritime history must leave its berth at the north end of Lake Union by Oct. 23 to avoid $75 a day in fines.

Recent aerial photos taken by the city's Department of Construction and Land Use show the 276-foot streamlined car ferry poking 50 feet beyond the legal limit into a Ship Canal navigational zone.

It survived years of neglect and a 1,700-mile journey back home but the Kalakala now faces rough waters of the regulatory kind. Gilbert W. Arias/P-I

Not only is the boat a hazard to navigation, the city has warned, but it is also a commercial operation in a non-commercial zone.

For sculptor Peter Bevis, who used his own money to help rescue the ferry and now heads the non-profit Kalakala Foundation, the need to find new moorage is as frustrating as sailing dead into the wind.

"We've got our sails up and we're being pushed backwards," Bevis said. "Every month we are handicapped. I'm amazed we are staying alive."

Despite legions of volunteers, donors and awed fans -- the Kalakala's rescue has even inspired a children's book titled "No Dream Is Too Big!" -- it has been hard to accumulate the estimated $700,000 needed to drydock the boat for critical repairs to its hull, Bevis said.

The warning from the city is a particularly frustrating mixed signal, Bevis said.

Mayor Paul Schell voiced his support for restoration when the boat, which resembles a cross between a silver slug and a Flash Gordon rocket, arrived home in November 1998.

And the boat has been at its current spot for 18 months without a hint anything was amiss. Just last month, the City Council accepted a $285,000 federal grant to help the Kalakala, money that will be freed up when the foundation comes up with $700,000 in private funding.

Inside the historic vessel, Peter Bevis, the founder of the Kalakala Foundation, ponders how to find a new home for the boat, which has been declared a navigational hazard. Gilbert W. Arias/P-I

Land use department spokesman Alan Justad said the city takes no joy in telling the Kalakala it has to move, but it can't make an exception to the rules. Justad said he isn't sure how the boat managed to escape the department's notice until now, although new aerial inspection photos of Lake Union were recently done.

"It's tough. I know they've been working diligently to try to find a home that will work in terms of regulations," he said.

Bevis said he is looking at locations on southern Lake Union where the Kalakala can be moored.

Unfortunately, the Coast Guard over the summer changed the Kalakala's status to that of a "permanently moored vessel," making it essentially a structure governed by city building codes, Bevis said.

Getting the old boat into drydock would solve everyone's problems and is critical to opening financial and legal doors, he said. Most boats are drydocked for inspection every two or three years, but it's been 30 for the Kalakala. That inspection alone would cost about $485,000, but it would answer questions about the vessel's iron hull and kick loose the $285,000 federal grant.

For now, the Kalakala is treading water, financially. The foundation takes in and spends about $10,000 a month, with about half of that going to moorage and insurance. The foundation is slowly paying off about $65,000 still owed to a marine surveyor who helped remove it from the Alaska mud and the tug company that towed it back, Bevis said.

The foundation also has more expenses. No longer allowed to use the boat as an office, it rents space at 68 S. Washington St. in Pioneer Square. A full-time employee coordinates 1,200 volunteers, and a half-time employee works on the boat. Bevis, who heavily contributed to the $1.2 million rescue, is unpaid.

Raising money for restoration by renting the boat for wedding receptions, anniversary parties, reunions and other events met with limited success. A Boeing Co. retirement party and an Easter sunset services were held on the boat. Two theatrical productions, Chekhov's "The Seagull" and "Projekt 2000.2," a play written for the Kalakala, were staged on the boat.

Map

Local bands, meanwhile, increasingly were seeking to use the Kalakala for concerts. It seemed appropriate, since the boat once boasted its own AM radio station, which broadcast music from the ferry's own dance band, Bevis said.

Then plans for a summer of fund raising became enmeshed in red tape thicker than the Kodiak mudflat, Bevis said.

The vessel was found to be in violation of fire and building codes, limiting its crowd capacity to 49.

"I guess we had been below the radar scope of the Coast Guard for a while and got real popular and became a victim of our own success," Bevis said.

If Seattle can't float the boat, a group of San Franciscans claims it can. They've tossed out feelers about acquiring it for a Museum of Ferry Boats at San Francisco Bay's Treasure Island. So far, Bevis said, his vision outweighs the frustrations of keeping the boat here.

Though absent from official tour guides, the boat still lures folks who simply have to see it. One man answering the siren song was Frank Stihafka, an engineer from Richmond, Va., in town visiting his daughter. He spotted the Kalakala while dining at a nearby restaurant.

"I just had to know more," he said, sporting camera gear and snapping away as he toured the vessel. "It's fascinating. It seems like just a wonderful project."

Moments later, Martin Blower and Liz Combes of Britain drove up, finding their way to the boat after spotting it from the Space Needle.

"Just amazing," Blower said, awed by the vessel now sporting the red-and-black flag of its one-time owner, the Black Ball Line.,

Inside the boat, the tourists stepped past the elbow grease being applied by some volunteers, their footsteps echoing in the hollow upper deck where passengers once paid a dollar to dance to Joe Bowen and the Flying Bird Orchestra. One admirer has provided $1,000 worth of steel for repairs, while an Alaska brass company gave supplies to rebuild the ferry's flying bridge.

A small foundry is being built on the bow to revive the nearly lost art of making brass fittings. And a Kodiak company donated an old harbor tug, the 60-foot Ruby XIV, now tied up next to the Kalakala, to be used when the ferry has to be moved.

To volunteer Dennis Long, 59, of Ballard, the world's first streamlined ferry was the first in a long line of Seattle innovations. He and others would like to see the boat, which once spawned postcards showcasing Seattle around the nation, become a floating community center and museum.

"The feel of this boat is like nothing else. It's like an old Harley-Davidson -- an individual," said Long, who rode the boat back in the days when it hauled 110 cars at $1.10 apiece between Bremerton and Seattle.

"To let this boat die would be like taking some great art object, a memory from that era, and throwing it away," he said.

Timeline

1926: The boat, considered fireproof and unsinkable, begins life as the Peralta, a conventional iron-hull ferry built with an oak superstructure by Moore Drydock Co. in Oakland, Calif, for service on San Francisco Bay.

1933: The Peralta burns to the waterline. The hull is acquired by Washington's Puget Sound Navigation Co., where Capt. Alexander Peabody plans to rebuild in an art-deco style. Boeing airplane model-maker Louis Procter helps design it.

1935: The Kalakala -- meaning flying bird -- begins service with the Black Ball Co. in the Puget Sound. Although prone to violent engine vibration, hard to handle and known for ramming docks, its futuristic style and creature comforts, including a dance floor and showers for commuters, make it an instant hit.

1940: Wartime expansion of the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard causes Kalakala's showers and taproom to be removed to accommodate more riders.

1945: Kalakala begins weekend excursions between Seattle and Victoria, B.C.

1954: Kalakala receives the world's first commercial radar unit after wartime technology is declassified.

1963: A poll shows the boat, affectionately known as the Silver Slug, is the 1962 World's Fair's second-biggest attraction after the Space Needle.

1967: The Kalakala retires -- after 32 years of ferrying 30 million passengers around the Sound, its auto lanes are too narrow to accommodate modern cars. New owners gut it and the hulk is beached in 1972 on a mudflat in Kodiak, Alaska, for use as a fish processing plant.

1988: Fremont artist Peter Bevis spots the vessel while on a fishing vacation. Fascinated, he begins a 10-year, $1.2 million quest to return it to Seattle.

October 1998: The Kalakala is refloated, passes seaworthiness tests and begins its 1,700-mile tow to Seattle.

November, 1998: The Kalakala arrives in Seattle, greeted by a flotilla of small boats, fireboat salutes and appreciative crowds. It moors at Pier 66 until a freshwater home is found.

March, 1999: Kalakala is towed to North Lake Union.

August: Seattle City Council votes to accept a $285,000 federal grant to help renovate the ship.

Last week: City inspectors warn the boat violates navigational codes by sticking too far into Lake Union and must be moved by Oct. 20.

Source: Kalakala Web site and P-I archives

P-I reporter Mike Barber can be reached at 206-448-8018 or michaelbarber@seattle-pi.com