PORT ANGELES — Black Ball Ferry Line’s MV Coho service to and from Victoria will be suspended for up to eight weeks beginning in January, company officials said last week.
The temporary shutdown will allow a new Coho ferry wharf, passenger ramp, covered walkway and dolphins to be built in Victoria’s Inner Harbour, along with structural improvements at the company’s Port Angeles dock, they said.
The service shut-off, slated to start Jan. 6 or a few days later, will affect up to 12,000 visitors who were expected to travel the 21-mile, 90-minute route in January and February aboard the 1,000-passenger vessel, Ryan Malane, company co-owner and vice president of marketing, said Friday.
About 3 percent of the Coho’s 400,000 annual passengers use the ferry in January and February, Malane said.
Malane said improvements to the Port Angeles dock — part of a five-year face-lift that began in 2012 — will include replacement of a “turning knuckle” that the Coho, 5,100 tons when empty, ties up to and pivots around in order to berth in Port Angeles.
The turning-knuckle’s creosote piles, bunched together like a fulcrum for the 1,000-passenger vessel, will be replaced with more environmentally-friendly steel piles.
“It’s a critical piece of infrastructure,” Malane said.
In addition, he added, a new, grated aluminum catwalk will be built that will let in more light for fish below.
Malane said by 2017, Black Ball will replace the eastern dock in Port Angeles and the sheet wall next to the terminal.
But he said the company has discarded plans to build a new terminal building.
The suspension of the only ferry service between the North Olympic Peninsula and Canada is expected to have little impact on the North Olympic Peninsula economy.
January and February are down months for tourists, Russ Veenema, executive director of the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce, said Friday.
“That period of time is about as quiet as it gets, so it’s not a huge impact,” Veenema said.
U.S.-based Black Ball already shuts down service annually for two weeks in January to service the Coho.
“We still have Olympic National Park and all the attributes this area has, and yes, it will affect us, but I think not dramatically,” Veenema said.
“What happens is, we get some people who haven’t checked the websites and haven’t planned ahead who will be disappointed folks when they get out here and realize the ferry is not running.”
Company co-owner Ryan Burles said last week in a separate interview that the Victoria wharf design is about 50 percent complete as part of a $17 million project.
So the exact shutdown time isn’t yet known.
“We understand that this certainly will impact our bottom line, and the fact we will not be running . . . also will affect people’s ability to go back and forth,” Burles said.
“We wish we could solve this easily.
The dock is more than about 80 years old and has reached the end of its useful life, especially the degraded, bug-ridden creosote piles, Burles said.
“Basically, repairs are having to be done every year to maintain them,” he said.
“Right now, our dock needs to be replaced, and replaced immediately.
“A safe dock gives us certainty for the future.”
That certainty will be solidified when Black Ball obtains a long-term lease from the British Columbia Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure.
Burles and Malane said the company is negotiating for a 30-year agreement with three 10-year renewal options in hopes for an agreement identical to the pact that Black Ball has with the Port of Port Angeles.
“We have all the confidence we’ll get a long-term lease,” Burles said.
Sonia Lowe, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, said Friday that lease negotiations are continuing.
“We still expect construction on the new Black Ball wharf to begin this fall,” Lowe said in an email.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.