The Malaspina on June 1 changed ownership from the state to a Ketchikan-based business that will use the former state ferry as a museum, but the ship did not move from the Mill at Ward Cove, where it has been tied up since December 2019.
After 56 years of service in the Alaska Marine Highway System fleet and almost three years tied up at a Ketchikan dock, unused and in need of costly repairs, the Malaspina is headed to another career as a privately owned floating museum and employee housing.
Plans also call for using the ship as a classroom for maritime industry jobs.
The state last week accepted $128,250 for the 408-foot-long passenger and vehicle ferry from the recently formed Ketchikan company M/V Malaspina.
The company is a subsidiary of Ward Cove Dock Group, owned by John Binkley, of Fairbanks, and the Spokely family, of Ketchikan.
Ward Cove Dock Group owns the Mill, a $55 million cruise ship dock, passenger terminal and visitor facilities under development at the site of the former Ketchikan pulp mill. More than 160 large ships are scheduled to tie up at the dock this summer, Binkley said. It opened with limited service last year.
The Malaspina will be stationed near the cruise ship dock.
In addition to turning the car deck of the Malaspina into a museum of state ferry system and Southeast history, the new owners plan to use the ship's staterooms to house summer cruise ship terminal employees, Binkley said last Friday.
The plan also includes using the ship as a classroom for the University of Alaska Southeast Ketchikan maritime program, Binkley said. The ship will provide hands-on experience for students in the engine room and on hydraulics and generators. "All those things you can't get in a classroom," he said.
The new owners hope to have the university program and museum in operation by next year.
The ship needs a lot of work before then, Binkley said, with the repair list including plumbing, water and sewage systems, and the massive diesel-fueled boiler that heats the ship. It's the original boiler from the 1960s and "isn't very efficient," he said.
Binkley did not provide an estimate for the repairs and upgrades needed on the ship. "Our plans will be ever evolving."
The museum will display not only artifacts but also videos and audio recordings of stories, told by the people who are part of the history.
The state has been paying Ward Cove Dock Group more than $425,000 a year to keep the ship heated and secure at the dock since late 2019, in addition to paying about the same amount each year to keep it insured. It is the fourth ferry sold by the state Department of Transportation in the past four years, as the ferry system has downsized and auctioned off older ships and even a couple of newer vessels that were too expensive to run.
John Binkley is the son of Jim Binkley, who was born in Wrangell in 1920 and whose father, Charlie, was a pioneer riverboat pilot on the Stikine River.
The Binkley family owns a riverboat tour business in Fairbanks.
The state selected the Binkley/Spokely offer from several proposals received for the 59-year-old ferry. None of the proposals talked of returning the ship to work as a ferry; a couple suggested it could find a new use as a floating hotel or cannery crew quarters.
The Malaspina would have needed at least $16 million in steel work to go back into service, plus new engines at a cost of several tens of millions of dollars, according to the Transportation Department.
"As the former Queen of the Fleet, and first mainline vessel built, we didn't want just any future for the Malaspina, and we certainly did not want her sold for scrap metal," ferry system general manager John Falvey said in a prepared statement June 1. "This gives her a retirement we can be proud of."
The Malaspina was the first of the three mainline ferries to arrive in Southeast in the early 1960s, followed by the Matanuska and the Taku. Each of the mainliners was built for about $4.5 million - a little under $45 million in 2022 dollars. Only the Matanuska remains in service.
The state sold the Taku for $171,000 to a Dubai-based company that took the ship to India, where it was dismantled for scrap.
More than a year ago, the state sold its two fast ferries, the Chenega and Fairweather, built at a combined cost of $68 million less than 20 years earlier, for just over $5 million to a Mediterranean-based catamaran operator. Though faster than any other ship in the fleet, the two vessels consumed significantly more fuel.
"I see generations of Alaskans who have grown up with these vessels, who from the time they were schoolkids, traveling between communities, going to doctor's appointments, visiting each other, taking vacations, engaging in commerce - how important that is to them," Binkley said at last week's ceremony turning over ownership of the Malaspina. "I see all this, and I say, don't scrap it. I say celebrate it. ... Save this history."
The Ketchikan Daily News contributed to this report.
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