‘Interesting deal’: Reporter unpacks how WSF’s out-of-state contract weighed time versus money

Washington has decided to contract with an out-of-state shipyard for the first time in 50 years to build new Washington State Ferries (WSF) vessels.

Reporter Tom Banse outlined the arrangement in an article for The Washington State Standard and discussed it on “The Jake and Spike Show” on KIRO Newsradio, calling the deal “interesting.”

“The deal was interesting from the get-go, because there were competing values, of spending our tax dollars locally or getting more for our buck by going to a Florida shipyard,” Banse said.

He explained that state officials announced in the summer that Washington would contract with Eastern Shipbuilding, a shipyard in the Florida Panhandle, for three new hybrid electric ferries.

“My colleague and I were interested to actually look at the contract and read it, once that was signed, and that only recently was made public. And this interesting arrangement became even more interesting because, on top of the issue of taxpayer savings versus local jobs, there is now the issue of time versus money. And Eastern Shipbuilding got a few changes to the standard template of the contract that Washington State Ferries first put forward for all the bidders nationwide, and one of them is an extra year to deliver each of those three new ferries,” Banse continued.

He added that he only found out about the extra time because he noticed a change in the contract.

Banse explained that there was a local bidder in the beginning, Nicholas Brothers, based on Whidbey Island. Nicholas Brothers said it could deliver the first ferry in 2029, the second one in 2030, and the third one in 2031 — but they bid over $1 billion for three new ferries.

Meanwhile, the Eastern Shipbuilding bid was $714 million.

“So the state leaders, all the way up to Governor Ferguson, decided, ‘As much as we’d like to keep our dollars at home and grow the shipbuilding capacity and know-how in our state, we just can’t afford it,” Banse said.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to “The Jake and Spike Show” weekdays from noon to 3 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.