Ships to ply channels swiftly, to carry people, cars, cargo

This ferry is similar to the two 340-foot catamarans Hawaii Superferry plans to use for passenger, car and freight service between Oahu, Kauai, Maui and the Big Island starting in 2006.

The Maui News: Ships to ply channels swiftly, to carry people, cars, cargo - - Maui News
Ships to ply channels swiftly, to carry people, cars, cargo
By HARRY EAGAR, Staff Writer

KAHULUI - The differences that are supposed to make the Hawaii Superferry the next revolution in interisland transportation are out of sight of the passengers - an all-aluminum welded hull and high-endurance diesel engines.

Maui got its first look at what the passengers will see Monday when a slightly smaller version of the proposed ship docked at Pier 3 at Kahului Harbor.
They saw a slab-sided, twin-hull vessel that is designed to get vehicles aboard fast, get them to another port cheaply and entertain their owners while doing so.

The two ferries are expected to begin daily service between Honolulu and Kahului late in 2006. The company is billing itself as the "H-4," and Hawaii Superferry Chairman Tim Dick said Monday the ferry has the potential to drastically improve the overall economy of the islands.

Dick, an engineer and dot-com millionaire, says similar ferries have already done so in the Canary Islands, a place much like Hawaii in size, climate, population and tourism.

The Canaries had no fast ferries until a few years ago, says Dick. Three big Austal ferries went into service in 2000, another in 2001, another in 2003 and another is expected this year.

That's twice as many as the promoters had originally projected, but Dick says a repeat visitor to those Atlantic islands can see where the growth is coming from. "It's been incredibly helpful" to the local economy, he says. "There is more agriculture, you can see more fields getting planted, it's creating agricultural growth."

He expects something similar could happen here. For example, with daily high-speed ferry service, Big Island ranchers, who have most of the dairy cows, could get their milk to Oahu, which has the dairies, and then onto trucks and onto the ferries to distribute a perishable product quickly to the other islands.

It would require some rethinking by the dairies, he says. They would have to obtain refrigerated trucks - the Superferry can carry 24 semis at a time - but he thinks they would go for it.

He projects that eventually cargo will provide 60 percent of the Superferry's business, although initially the company is predicting 60 percent from passengers. With daily service and easy loading, he can see the Superferry turning into a "door-to-door courier service."

Instead of separate islands, "we would become one state," he said.

Passenger prices are projected to be about half interisland airfare, and customers will be able to drive on a car for about the same price as themselves.

In other words, a couple could travel from Maui to Oahu and take their car for about the same price as flying - but without the expense of renting a car or taking a taxi at the other end.

The passenger capacity will be 900; with two ferries operating round trip, the capacity would be about the same as that of 18 Hawaiian or Aloha jets.

The ferry's promoters claim overall travel time will not be greatly different, once airport security and hassle are taken into account.

Exactly how passengers will get aboard at Kahului is under study. Scott Cunningham, Maui County district manager of the state Harbors Division, says the state is "very supportive" of the ferry idea but does not yet know how the shore-side operations will be set up.

Cramped Kahului Harbor will present the greatest difficulties. Nawiliwili, Kauai; Kawaihae, Hawaii; and Honolulu are comparatively simple in comparison.

Once it is decided which pier - both Pier 2 and Pier 3 are under consideration - the ferry docks at, the cars will be marshaled somewhere, possibly outside the harbor area.

Then they will drive on across a stern ramp six lanes wide.

The drivers will head for the bow, then peel off left or right to park in the hangar deck, which is the size of a football field.

That will position them to drive right off at the other end.

"Really, what it's all about is organization," says Dick. A whole load of 280 cars (or 24 trucks and 200 cars) can be boarded in 30 minutes.

Once aboard, the customers will climb two flights of stairs (there's an elevator for disabled passengers) to a spacious, enclosed promenade deck.

This will include three restaurants (probably a coffee and juice bar, a plate lunch palace and a fancier "taste of the islands" eatery), a children's play area, business center, shops and plenty of observation areas.

Most seating will be similar to airlines' but with more legroom.

The vessel will be able to accommodate laptop computer users, although cell phones will lose their effectiveness about three miles from shore. Therefore, the ships will have phone booths, with satellite phones.

The outdoor sun (and smoking) deck will be a brisk environment. The ship will move through the water at 35 knots, or about 40 miles an hour.

Dick says there are almost 50 of these huge, fast, Australian-designed ferries in service worldwide, with a perfect safety record. The U.S. Marines use one on a 1,100-mile route between Okinawa and Yokohama.

Down below, in remarkably clean engine rooms, lie the engines - four 11,000-horsepower, 20-cylinder diesel engines that drive four 300-kilowatt generators.

The generators power pumps that push water through huge, steerable gates that serve the function that propellers and a rudder do in most ships. At flank speed, each gate passes an Olympic-size pool full of water each second.

The engines, from Detroit Diesel Off Highway Systems, can push the ship over the waves at a remarkable rate. The somewhat smaller Spirit of Ontario I that called at Kahului Monday is said to be the fastest big ferry in the world, capable of 48 miles an hour and designed to cruise at 44 mph.

The Hawaii Superferry, intended for the open ocean, will not go quite that fast, says Dick, although it has so much in reserve that it can keep up its design speed on just three engines.

Engine rooms of diesel-powered vessels are usually filmed in diesel oil. Not so with Spirit of Ontario, even after crossing the Pacific.

Don Thornburg, president of Ocean Frontier on Kauai, who represents Detroit Diesel, says the reason is double-walled, high-pressure injector lines.

The engines also have carbon-fiber drive shafts, instead of steel. Their behavior is monitored through more than 100 sensors, and the engines are designed to run an almost incredible 24,000 hours before major rebuilds.

The company expects to operate 16 hours a day, which would mean more than four years between engine tear-downs. Since the ships can maintain speed on three engines, it should be possible to operate day in and day out for years without stopping for engine maintenance.

That does not mean the ferry will sail every day, says Dick. There are occasions when waves breaking across harbor entrances will keep the ferry at home, but it is designed to operate in most weather.

The whole thing is so high-tech, according to Dick, that the Jones Act does not affect the cost: $75 million per ship.

They will be built in Alabama in a joint venture between Austal of Perth, Australia, and Bender Industries, an American shipyard.

For traditional steel ships, construction in U.S. yards, which is required by federal law for ships trading between domestic ports, is much more expensive than in foreign yards.

However, says Dick, not even the best foreign yards can manage the intricate welding and other advanced techniques required by the Austal design.

For all that, the designs are more than 10 years old and well-proven, Dick says. Leading edge, not bleeding edge, is the company's watchword.

The last attempt to introduce high-speed interisland ferries to Hawaii - SeaFlite - failed because the then-unproven technology could not stand up to Hawaiian conditions.

According to Dick, Austal ferries have coped with seas as bad as Hawaii's in the English Channel, the Baltic and other rough seaways.

At cruising speed, the four engines will consume about three tons of diesel per hour. "It sounds like a lot," says Dick, but it is much less fuel than jet planes would use to move the same traffic.

Other considerations for a ferry service include disposal of wastewater and avoiding humpback whales.

The company is hoping that the state will build pump-out stations and holding tanks at Pier 19 in Honolulu for wastewater.

If the state doesn't, the ferries will install onboard treatment plants, and the effluent will be discharged outside the 12-mile limit.

Avoiding whales will require new technology, now being developed.

According to Dick, professor Joe Mobley of the University of Hawaii-West Oahu has tested a radar that had zero failures in picking out whales. In a test off Oahu, with aerial surveillance to check the background, the system identified all the whales present and did not misidentify anything else in the ocean as a whale.

Dick says the ferry will be rerouted during whale season to avoid the shallow waters where the whales congregate. That will add about half an hour to the usual time between Honolulu and Kahului, planned for 2 1/2 hours.

Some other maritime ventures announced for Hawaii have never gotten their feet wet for lack of financing, but Hawaii Superferry says it has most of the $150 million it needs in place and expects the rest by the end of this year. The Federal Maritime Administration is backing the venture with loan guarantees on the ship construction.

Once in operation, each ferry will require a crew of 27, and the company as a whole expects to build up to a staff of 300.