San Francisco Ferries Sent to San Diego for Engine Refit

When ferry transit officials in the San Francisco Bay Area decided to refit the engines on three commuter ferries, they figured one of their local ship repair yards would successfully bid for the $5 million job.

And indeed, Southwest Marine--which is headquartered in San Diego but also maintains repair yards in San Francisco and San Pedro--was the low bidder.

But Southwest Marine decided against towing the ferries a few miles over to its repair yard at Pier 28 in San Francisco.

Instead, it assigned the ferries to its San Diego facility, 465 miles to the south. Unlike its sister operation in San Francisco, that facility was not booked solid with work.

“I was very surprised the work didn’t stay up here, and a little disappointed, because we had hoped the job would put people to work in the Bay Area,” lamented Eric Robinson, manager of the Ferry Transit Division of the Golden Gate Bridge District. “But at least we kept the job on the West Coast.”

San Francisco’s loss was San Diego’s gain: a 20-month-long project that is expected to keep 30 workers employed full time.

Al Shapiro, sales manager for Southwest Marine, said the company decided to bring the three ferries to San Diego “to stabilize our work force and because of projected work loads. That’s the advantage of operating three full-service repair yards--you can stabilize the work.”

The company employs between 1,200 and 1,500 employees at the three yards.

The $5- million contract calls for Southwest Marine to replace three gas turbine engines with two diesel models on each of the three 725-passenger ferries--the San Francisco, the Marin and the Sonoma. Work on the San Francisco already has been completed; the Marin will leave the Bay area Wednesday, and the Sonoma will arrive in June.

The engines are being converted because the cost of gasoline has skyrocketed from 12 cents per gallon when the ferries were built in 1976 to more than $1 per gallon, Robinson said.

The ferries run from San Francisco to Larkspur in Marin County, passing such sights as San Quentin and Alcatraz.