A Louisiana-based firm has submitted the apparent low bid to build a replacement for the Alaska Marine Highway System ferry Tustumena.

Thoma-Sea Marine Constructors submitted a “public bid price” of about $350 million to build the replacement ship, according to a June 30 announcement from the Alaska Department of Transportation.

The state estimated the price tag at $250 million in 2021, before changes to the design and ship specifications — and several years of inflation.

After a review of the company’s filings, “the department will move forward with a formal intention to award the contract,” the announcement said.

Thoma-Sea was the only bidder.

The vessel could be ready for service in 2029.

The project aims to replace the 296-foot Tustumena that began service in 1964 and continues to serve communities in Southcentral Alaska, Kodiak Island and the Aleutian Island. 

The new design for the oceangoing ferry is 330 feet in length, with a capacity for 250 passengers and almost three dozen 20-foot vehicles, along with a diesel-electric hybrid propulsion system.

Decades of being battered in the Gulf of Alaska have taken a toll on the Tustumena. Starting in late 2012, it spent several months in dry dock for a series of repairs, disrupting sailing schedules and leaving Gulf of Alaska communities like Kodiak without ferry service for an extended period.

In 2016, it developed a hull crack severe enough to force some weather restrictions for the ship’s operations.

Those problems inspired the nickname: “Rusty Tusty.”

Thoma-Sea, based in Houma, Louisiana, was founded in 1990, according to company information. In 2003, Thoma-Sea bought the defunct Halter Shipyard in Lockport, Louisiana, providing the capacity to build “larger, more complex vessels.”

Over time, Thoma-Sea’s newbuild portfolio has included offshore and ship escort tugs, articulated tug barges, platform supply and fishing vessels, barges and inland tow boats, according to company information. 

The company also has built two oceanographic-class research ships for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The 244-foot NOAA ships Oceanographer and Discover were launched in 2024 and 2025, respectively, and are set for completion this year, according to NOAA information. 

In the early 2020s, it completed the pollock catcher-processor Arctic Fjord for the Arctic Storm Management Group, which operates the 328-foot ship in the Bering Sea.

The Tustumena replacement ferry would be the first new Alaska state ferry since the Tazlina and Hubbard were finished by Alaska Ship & Drydock at the Ketchikan Shipyard in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

The effort to replace the Tustumena has been in the works — off and on — since at least 2018. A 2022 solicitation for bids received no responses and was canceled, and subsequent plans for new bidding processes were delayed until January of this year.

Most of the funding for the new ferry will come from federal grants.