Ralph Munro once told me he would sometimes gaze up at Interstate 5 on nighttime ferry trips to Seattle, the white and red lights of stopped cars snaking in all directions.
Meanwhile, the saltwater was “flat calm,” he said, an oasis amid some of the nation’s worst traffic.
The former Washington secretary of state, who died in March, grew up on Bainbridge Island, where he frequently hopped small ferries in the waning days of the Mosquito Fleet. This was the motley mix of steamships that began crisscrossing Puget Sound before car travel. Munro saw a potential solution to today’s “dead stopped” congestion by looking to the past.
Last week, a new brand of ferry visited the Sound that could further invigorate that idea.
As The Times’ Nicholas Deshais reported, a Northern Ireland company called Artemis Technologies debuted on the Sound its new hydrofoil ferry. Each time the boat hit cruising speed, it lifted into the air, appearing to ride on underwater skis. More accurately, it’s supported by airplane-like wings under the waves.
Foil ferries aren’t new. The Navy operated a Boeing-built class of highflying coastal patrol boats until 1993. But today’s ferry prototypes won’t guzzle gas as those did — they’ll run on electrons instead.
That’s why this moment is worth paying attention to. A fully battery-powered glide across the Sound reduces carbon emissions and costs for ferry operators.
Kitsap Transit already operates three catamarans from Bremerton-Seattle that get a partial lift from a hydrofoil underwater. Built by Bellingham’s All American Marine, the vessels helped the transit authority reduce the potential for shore-damaging wake through Rich Passage.
But the boats consume about 88 gallons of diesel an hour.
The new electric foil ferry’s “flying” above the water reduces drag. Packing batteries inside a carbon composite frame gives the vessel all the power it needs.
Last Monday, I got a chance to ride it myself from Bremerton. Katy Perry may have gotten 10 minutes in space aboard the Blue Origin rocket, but I have to say, riding on this cutting-edge boat was exhilarating in its own way. It’s an experience that may be possible for ferry riders in Puget Sound in the not-too-distant future.
Artemis is building a bigger version called the EF-24 and is slated to run a route between Belfast and Bangor, Northern Ireland, starting later this year. But the company is also partnering with local builders in the U.S., with the hope their new 150-passenger vessel could transport people in Puget Sound, too.
Our region grapples with ever more gridlock. Motorists here lost 63 hours to congestion in 2024, up from 46 just two years earlier, according to analytics firm INRIX. These vessels could give new options to local governments and even the private sector — a kind of bus rapid transit on the water.
Artemis isn’t the only company competing in this new space. Seattle-based Glosten and Bieker Boats are designing their own hydrofoil ferry. Kitsap Transit has secured $5.2 million in state grants to pay them to build a prototype.
State lawmakers can help harness this emerging technology. A “Mosquito Fleet” bill, sponsored by Rep. Greg Nance, D-Bainbridge Island, would have given local communities more ways to stand up their own ferry districts. Despite an enthusiastic 87-8 House vote, it stalled in the Senate Transportation Committee. Lawmakers should take up the cause again next year.
I think Ralph Munro was on to something, staring up at all those stopped cars on the freeway. Perhaps, not many years from now, foil ferries could become a viable way to move people in an increasingly gridlocked region.
— Josh Farley