The tugboat Edith Olson pulls a barge past the heavy-lift vessel Red Zed I in the Tongass Narrows near Ketchikan during a heavy snowfall last Friday. The 712-foot-long heavy-lift vessel was expected to spend the week in Ketchikan, taking aboard the Alaska Marine Highway System's two mothballed fast ferries that the state has sold to a Mediterranean-based tour operator. The semi-submersible Red Zed 1 will give the 235-foot-long Chenega and Fairweather a piggyback ride to Spain. The state paid about $68 million to build the two ferries less than 20 years ago. It sold the pair for $5.175 million, as part of an ongoing effort to reduce the size of the fleet to save money.
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