The M/V Quinault in 2004.

Via Seattlest comes the news from WSDOT that the venerable Steel-Electric ferries have finally been sold off for scrap. The four ferry boats Quinault, Illahee, Nisqually and Klickitat were retired in 2007 after problems with their hulls were discovered. Fixing them would have cost too much, so the state decided to put that money towards developing a future class of ferries rather than putting band aids on the old. Now, 18 months later, the boats have been sold to Eco Planet Recycling, Inc. of Chula Vista, Calif, for $50,000 each. They’ll be taken to Mexico and cut up for scrap.

These four boats were known as the “Steel Electrics“. They were the oldest boats in the fleet, being commissioned in 1927 for use in the San Francisco Bay. After the Golden Gate Bridge was built ferries were no longer in as much demand, so the four boats, along with two of their sisters, came up to Puget Sound and went to work on the Black Ball Line. Since then they’ve sailed the sound, finding themselves on just about every run imaginable. They ended their careers on some of the lower-traffic runs, including the Port Townsend-Keystone route and doing inter-island service in the San Juans.

For now the boats are still tied up in Eagle Harbor, but next month sometime they’ll be towed away to Mexico, leaving the Salish Sea forever.

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