Drawing courtesy of Johan Iversen.
Starting the program back in 1986, WSF picked up a second-hand vessel by the name Glacier Express, a former Alaska tour boat. Her named was chopped down to Express and she was assigned to the the Bremerton run, with the promise of a half hour commute.
It was far from a success. The Express constantly broke down. Dire warnings (which proved to be unfounded) about the safety of the vessel floated up from the engineers. The first year of service found the Express out of serivce more than in. And darker times loomed ahead as property owners on Bainbridge Island got a look at what the wake was doing to their beaches.
By the time the Skagit and Kalama joined the passenger only fleet in 1989, the Express had already been slowed voluntarily by WSF.
Renamed Tyee in 1989 to be in line with the Native American names of her two running mates, all three vessels were tied up when there was no funding to run them. The Skagit and Kalama actually first saw service on San Francisco Bay after they were sent down there to assist after the '89 earthquake.
Over the next decade the Tyee and her sisters ran from Bremerton and to Vashon Island from Seattle, but with the two new POFF's (passenger only fast ferries) arriving in 1997 and 1998, it was assumed the Tyee and the others would be put out to pasture.
Funding for the expanded passenger only program dried up with the passage of I-695. The ferries held on for a time, but service at Bremerton ended in 2003. The Tyee, which had been working at Vashon, was pulled from the run.
A few months later, WSF listed her on eBay for sale. She was purchased by a new company with designs on returning to the Bremerton route.
Renamed the Aqua Express, the ferry operated for about six months from Kingston to downtown Seattle. Unable to make a profit, and with a steadily declining number of passengers, the run was shut down. There are hopes to revive the service, but so far the process is mired in red tape and the inexcapable fact that passenger only fast ferries are not fuel efficient and are incrediably expensive to run.
With the failure of yet another tax package to fund passenger only ferries in February of 2007, it is likely that, for all intents and purposes, passenger only service is dead on Puget Sound.
Currently the vessel is back in Alaskan waters serving as a tour boat under her original name--Glacier Express. She is still recognizable as a former Tyee. She'll like pass into the pages of history with little distinction.
