Propulsion: Diesel-Electric(DC) Max Vehicles: 65 Gross Tonnage: 678 City Built: Oakland, CA Auto Deck Clearance:16'0" Year Built/Re-built: 1954
Name Translation: From the Lummi/Nooksack language: Great White Watcher, the name for Mt. Baker
Drawing Courtesy of Johan Iversen.
The ferry had started her career as the Crown City, for the San Diego-Coronado ferry company. Open decks were fine for San Diego, where many a pleasnt sunny and temperate afternoon would be spent walking the open car deck, but it wasn't much use in Washington State. Added to that, the propensity for most passengers aboard WSF vessels, once on the boat, is to "go upstairs" and stretch out a bit.
Not so on the Kulshan, although you could wander the car deck and peer over the side at the foaming Sound.
My experience with the Kulshan dates back to the brief time she filled in on Hood Canal after the bridge sank in 1979. Normally she haunted the Clinton, Whidbey Island, to Mukilteo route. It was a fairly bumpy day on the Canal, and the Kulshan was rolling pretty well with the surf. Now, I can't image anything more frightening to some who hated water and being on it with the open deck Kulshan rolling about with her open deck. There were several green faced passengers, and even though the crossing was something like 1.5 miles, most folks were not happy. She made it, however, and I am pretty sure that was the last time we ever rode on that boat.
A short time later the Kulshan's finest moment came while the filming of An Officer and a Gentleman was done. The ferry was featured very prominetly as actress Deborah Winger walked the deck.
A few years later, the State sold her to the Coast Guard for a hefty profit, and she went out to New York under the name of Governor, working from Governor's Island to New York City. (The Coast Guard isn't known for giving ferries imaginative names, from what I've been told.)
From the early 1980's into the early 1990's the old Kulshan sailed that route. She made her last sailing for the Coast Guard on 26 July 1997, and was sold shorly thereafter.
Somewhere along the line a rumor got circulated that the Kulshan had somehow managed to get sunk by the Coast Guard. Nothing could be further from the truth.
A quick of check of the online Coast Guard records easily dispelled this. It is very much still working, as a reserve ferry, for Transportation Authority at Martha's Vineyard, generally working mostly in the summers.
Still under the name Governor, she's had some modifications done to her, inclusing the addition of small enclosed area on the deck for passengers.
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