The unique landscape of Southeast Alaska, while awe inspiring, can make moving cargo and vehicles between islands challenging.

The once-a-week state ferry and weekly freight barge don’t fit everyone’s needs, whether moving equipment and material for construction jobs, recreation or hunting trips, or hauling to remote sites. Now Wrangell and nearby communities will have another option for moving cargo.

Wrangell sightseeing tour company and water taxi service Muddy Water Adventures has added a new vessel to its fleet. The 52-foot-long landing craft — dubbed The Dropship — is now the largest vessel in the company’s fleet.

“Right now, there’s really no other boats in the area that can move bigger vehicles like that or bigger cargo,” said company owner Zach Taylor.

Taylor said that with reductions to state ferry service over the years, there’s a niche that’s been left unfilled. Although there used to be a larger vessel stationed in Wrangell — the 65-foot-long Rainforest Islander — which could transport multiple vehicles at a time, it was sold to operators out of Petersburg.

The Dropship, with a drop-down bow to load vehicles, can only carry six passengers right now, although Taylor may try to expand that capacity in the future. He said other boats in his fleet are better suited for hauling people, such as a 15-passenger jetboat.

Muddy Water purchased the vessel in Homer back in May but left it docked up north in Seward for a few months due to big seas. Taylor said he’s happy to finally have it home.

He did not disclose the price, but the vessel is practically brand new, fabricated in 2025. It features three Honda 250-horsepower outboards, allowing it to get up to around 30 mph with no cargo.

The vessel has a 20,000-pound max weight capacity, but he said they’re still fine tuning how best to distribute big weight shipments on the boat for optimal performance.

So far they’ve tried loading Taylor’s dad’s truck, which is around 9,000 pounds, which did fine but they had to go slow. “It just depends on what it is. I had my Zarembo rig. I went and rescued it the other day, and it weighs maybe 3,000 pounds, and it did just fine because it’s just so much lighter,” he said of the vehicle he keeps on Zarembo Island

Although there are some small projects to finish and some upgrades he’d like to do for comfort — like finishing the galley and the bunk below deck — the Dropship is ready to start moving stuff now, and customers are lining up.

“I’ve got a bunch of calls already for Petersburg. Going way out different hunting places. Going to Zarembo. Got a couple callers for Ketchikan, a couple callers for Juneau,” Taylor said, “So there’s stuff to be moved.”

Taylor, who is also the assistant fire chief for the Wrangell Volunteer Fire Department, said the new boat in town also expands capacity for search and rescue operations for Wrangell and neighboring communities.

“This will be a primary search and rescue vessel,” Taylor said, “So that’s nice to have the lights and the ability to drop the ramp. You know, you get whatever’s going on. We’ve got another big boat that in a storm or bad weather can go out and help people.”

Taylor purchased the vessel after selling his company’s high-speed catamaran this past March.