Pierce County reinstates ferry after installing Canadian parts

Pierce County Ferries resumed operations for the Steilacoom II on Tuesday afternoon after installing replacement signal boards from a Canadian vendor.

Crews completed the installation at approximately 1:00 p.m. and immediately began conducting sea trials to verify the repairs.

A morning announcement from the county noted that service parts were expected to arrive Tuesday afternoon, but it did not provide a specific date for when full service would return to the Steilacoom-Anderson Island route.

The vessel suspended service on Saturday due to a mechanical failure in its propulsion system.

Pierce County identified signal boards as the root cause of the breakdown.

Both of the vessel's backup signal boards failed, creating an immediate need for repair.

The county stated that the specific components were difficult to locate and were unavailable within the United States.

County officials contacted a Canadian vendor that held the proper components to resolve the issue.

The Steilacoom II is the primary vessel serving the route between Steilacoom, Ketron, and Anderson Island.

The alternative vessel on this route, the Christine Anderson, is currently in dry dock and cannot serve as a backup.

Washington State Ferries typically does not handle this route because it operates as a separate transportation system from Pierce County Ferries.

The last time a Washington State Ferry operated the Steilacoom-Anderson Island route occurred in 2008 under rare circumstances when the Steilacoom II was loaned to the state fleet for the Port Townsend to Keystone route due to dry dock needs on the state vessel Rhododendron, which was not approved for the rougher open waters of Port Townsend by the Coast Guard at that time; this historical context does not apply to the current situation as the state fleet is not the designated fallback for this specific county route during routine repairs unless unique logistical alignments occur similar to the 2008 event, but currently, the state system remains separate from the county operations for this specific island crossing, leaving the county to manage the repair timeline independently without state vessel assistance for the immediate disruption period described in this update.