Ferry Service Making Final Docking After 131 Years

“Jug” looked every bit the crusty seafarin’ skipper, with a scruffy old fisherman’s cap and scraggly new beard, as he guided the trusty Heron out toward Mare Island.

It was a short journey as sea adventures go--a quarter-mile in length, two minutes in duration.

But it was a trip rich in history.

John Ambrosini, “Jug” to his friends, was at the helm of one of the three 45-year-old flat-bottom ferryboats that constitute the latest and perhaps last generation of the Mare Island Ferry Service.

Owners of the service, between Vallejo and the Mare Island Naval Shipyard 30 miles northeast of San Francisco, said they believe their operation--now in its 132nd year--is the oldest continuous ferry service in the West.

They mention this in announcing that the service will end today.

An operation that survived six wars, from the Civil War to Vietnam, cannot withstand its latest economic burden.

Run-down shore facilities, which neither the Navy nor ferry owners can afford to repair, are forcing the ferry to stop operating for the first time since Cmdr. David Glasgow (“Damn the Torpedoes! Full Speed Ahead!”) Farragut established the Navy base in 1854.

In the future, shipyard employees will drive to work over one of the bridges or causeways serving the island, which has actually become a peninsula because of landfills and siltation from the Napa River.

For years, the base repaired the floats on which passengers are unloaded, until shipyard commander Capt. H.P. Mann learned this violates Navy policy. Ferry operators said they cannot afford the maintenance themselves.

“Personally, I feel sad that anything with this longevity has to end, but it all comes down to the bottom line,” said Dan Doherty, spokesman for ferry operator Victor Raahague, whose family has run the service since 1922.

“We were just barely breaking even as it was. Throwing the added burden of maintenance of the floats on us made it uneconomic to continue. This is not a charity.” The ferry service charges 40 cents a crossing.

Started Young

“Sure, I’ll miss it,” said Ambrosini, 62, gently goosing the throttle as the Heron glides up to the shipyard to pick up another group of workers eager to go home. “I practically grew up on these boats.”

Ambrosini, like most other skippers, started working on the ferries as a teen-ager during World War II, when Mare Island was not only the oldest and largest naval yard on the West Coast but one of the busiest as well. Nearly 1,600 ships were built or repaired there during the war.

He left to serve in the Air Force (“Not the Navy, no way! I was here when they brought in the (cruiser) San Francisco. I saw what a kamikaze can do!”), then piloted ocean-going tugboats in the Caribbean for 22 years. He came back to the ferries in 1979 to work part time in semi-retirement.

When he returned, he recognized some of his old passengers, still clinging to the outside of the ferry for the short hop across Mare Island Strait.

Peak Service

At its peak during the war, the ferry service shuttled 50,000 people a day, 24 hours a day, on 17 boats, including two 1,500-passenger steam-powered side-wheelers. Tickets then sold for a nickel.

“They had guys all over the boat in those days,” Ambrosini said. “They all wanted to be the first off, so they were jumping off before we’d hit the dock. Some were going in the drink.”

He laughed with a curious, good-natured scorn.

“They finally had to post Marines on board,” he said, “to keep them from killing themselves.”

Passengers still cling precariously to the outside of the boats, but since there are only about 300 riders a day there are plenty of seats inside for anyone wanting a safer journey.

A single ferry has been handling the traffic for some time although there are two more, Pelican and Falcon, in reserve.

Will Be Hired Out

With the demise of the ferry service, the boats, which were built in nearby Tiburon in 1941, will be hired out for charters and sightseeing cruises around the Napa River and Suisin Bay, Doherty said.

Ironically, the oldest ferry service in the San Francisco Bay Area is about to end at a time when other ferries are enjoying renewed popularity--in part because sleek, new, high-powered boats that dart across the bay at 30 m.p.h. can easily out-race bridge-bound automobiles.

The privately run Red and White Fleet, for example, recently began regular commuter service from Vallejo to San Francisco and added more speedy catamaran runs between the city and Marin County.

Meanwhile, the Golden Gate Bridge District, which runs a fleet of ferries as a way to ease congestion on its bridge, reported a 44% ridership increase on its plush boats this summer.

Entirely new services also have been popping up, including a proposal for a high-speed service from a pricey new waterfront development in northern Marin County and seasonal service between San Francisco and Stockton.

Looking Back

But the skippers of the Mare Island Ferry, most of whom started work on the boats as youngsters during World War II, have not been talking much about the future of other ferries. Mostly, they have been recalling the history of their own.

“Hell, I had never even been on a boat before they hired me here,” said Dennis Sullivan, 56, who has skippered for more than 40 years, even working part time at the helm after walking a beat for the Vallejo Police Department.

He retired--from the force, not the ferries--in 1981.

“I fibbed to the company,” Sullivan said. “I was really only 14 at the time, but I said I was 16 . . . and they put me to work as a deck hand.

“Eight months later, I put on a suit, stuck a cigarette in my mouth, told everyone I was 18 and went down to apply for my (captain’s) license.”

Because of the calm waters between Vallejo and Mare Island, skippers said, inexperience was not a major danger.

Problem of Fog

“Fog is the only real problem,” Ambrosini said. “You can’t see past the bow sometimes. One time, they had a gal who got out in the fog, got lost, and came back to the same dock. She thought she was on the island.”

Other tales were told of pretty women in racing sculls and mixed-up men in sailboats and daredevil surfers hitching rides off the backs of the ferries.

“They’re all fighting over who is going to bring the boat back for the last time,” said Doherty. “We have four people who have been with us for years and years and years, and we will probably have them switch off.

“That way, they can all say they took her home on her very last run.”