The "Buck Rogers" Ferry, Final Chapter

By IMLS DCC (http://www.flickr.com/photos/imlsdcc/)
[CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

On Feb. 3 of this year, my third sci-fi romance from Tor Books (ECHO 8) released, and I posted about the story's connection to (and inclusion of) the historic ferry Kalakala. Here's a description from the Seattle PI, which I also included as the opening quote in the chapter called "Derelict."

The Kalakala began life as the Peralta, a 1927 San Francisco Bay steam ferry that was towed north in ruins after a fire destroyed its wooden superstructure. At the old Lake Washington Shipyards in Kirkland, workers grafted a daring new aluminum top on the salvaged iron hull, and the Kalakala debuted on Seattle's waterfront on July 3, 1935. It soon became a world-famous, state-of the-art attraction, synonymous with Seattle long before the Space Needle became a landmark. Billed as the world's first streamlined ferry, it excited imaginations about the future with its Buck Rogers rocket-ship lines and art deco style. 
- “Kalakala’s table set for unseen guest,” Seattle PI, February 13, 2002

Coincidentally the boat, which has had a long and storied past (and no small amount of bad luck), ended up being scrapped at the time of ECHO 8's release.

Wheelhouse

People in and around Seattle followed the final events closely -- turned out lots of folks besides me had a soft spot for the rusty old thing. Different parties tried for a couple of decades to raise the money to restore her, but no joy.

However, she did receive some TLC in the end. The owner-by-default at the time of scrapping was Karl Anderson, the businessman who owned the moorage where she'd been docked (and sinking) for the past decade. He stated in interviews he felt the boat had reached out to him for help, and it was important to him to give her a death with dignity. If you read some of the coverage from that time, you'll see she got exactly that, complete with farewell ceremony.

View from side of wheelhouse

Heaven knows she deserved it, after burning, running into docks, hosting a suicide in the ladies lounge, getting hauled to Alaska to be used as a fish-processing facility, being the subject of two failed fundraising attempts, and finally ending up moored in the Hybelos Waterway in Tacoma, where she was slowly sinking and represented a major threat to shipping traffic.

But I'm happy to report there was a bright note at the end of this final chapter. A Seattle restaurant owner (Salty's on Alki Beach) made sure the Kalakala wouldn't be forgotten, or entirely gone. He purchased the wheelhouse, rudder, and enormous piston, all of which you can see outside his restaurant, and in the photos I've posted here.

Rudder

Salty's owner Robert Gerald Kingen plans to incorporate the parts into a sculpture park that will tell the ferry's story. Kingen too developed a fondness for Kalakala, as you can read for yourself in the restaurant's news release about the acquisition:

This is a love story. It's the story of the Queen of Puget Sound — the Kalakala — and the men who were smitten by her Art Deco glory and wouldn't let her be forgotten.

Thanks to Kingen, I was able to visit Kalakala in person for the first time last Friday. She was moored on Seattle's Lake Union when I first moved here, and I remember wondering every time I drove over the University of Washington cut, "What is that great, rusted beast? There must be a story there."

There surely was, and as I began to research her, I knew I had to add to that story. In ECHO 8, a book about parallel universes, she lives on in all her former glory.

By the time I began researching the ferry, she had been moved to Tacoma. I tried to arrange a tour, but it didn't work out. So I'd never stepped foot onboard until last Friday, when I drove to Salty's to visit the wheelhouse and snap these photos. It was a long time coming.

The Kalakala's view of Seattle

ECHO 8: We have lift-off! (And a giveaway!)

Echo 8, from Tor Books. Action, suspense,
science, and romance!

In a way, it feels like any other day. Maybe it's all the buildup to Seattle's second consecutive Super Bowl, and the collective sob that went up in those closing seconds. Maybe it's all the media coverage I've been following on the demise of the Kalakala, a historic ferry boat that features prominently in ECHO 8. Maybe it's because I wrote this book like five years ago, and wasn't sure it would ever make it into print.

But it did. And I'm thrilled, because this one holds a special place in my heart, and it's the favorite of my beta readers.

If you read Laurie's post last week, you know there have been some interesting synchronicities, to say the least. The most poignant of which, perhaps, is the dismantling of the Kalakala coinciding with the release of ECHO 8. She sat for more than a decade in the Port of Tacoma, taking on water and threatening to disrupt shipping in an important waterway. Then just over a week ago she made her final voyage, and they've been taking her apart piece by piece ever since.

I was sad to see her go after spending so much time researching her for the book. She'd begun to feel like a friend, and she had some really hard luck over her lifetime. But the man who finally put her out of her misery did it with compassion, even arranging a special ceremony when the dismantling began. And the old girl put up a fight to the end! There is some great footage of cranes trying to knock her over in dry dock.

I think part of the reason I empathized with her is that sometimes being an author (especially an author in a niche genre) feels exactly like that. Sometimes it seems like there's every reason in the world we should keel over and give up. But deep down we know we're made of better stuff than that.

By R. M. Calamar (Flickr: Mural of the Kalakala in Port Angeles)
[CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

The Kalakala did pass though, and she did it with dignity. The fellow who basically ended up with her by default (after two separate, failed attempts by other parties to raise funds to restore her) grew just as attached as I did. But he believed she was ready to go and was asking for his help, and he didn't refuse. He spent something like half a million dollars just stabilizing her for that final journey to dry dock.

And out of her ashes (pardon me while I melodramatically mix metaphors) rises ECHO 8. A story about parallel Earths, and on one of them Kalakala lives on.

(But lest things get TOO serious, check out this sci-fi interpretation of the Kalakala's last stand.)

Happy release day, ECHO 8! (And happy birthday to baby ECHO 8 - see Laurie's post yesterday to see who I mean!)

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