Modern ferry, not rail, is the solution

There is a (relatively) inexpensive solution to Oahu’s traffic congestion, compared with the elevated rail project. West Oahu and East Oahu are already connected to Honolulu via a transportation venue that requires no rights-of-way, no grading, no surfacing, no striping, no lighting, no concrete, no steel, no future crumbling infrastructure; a continually renewable resource native to Hawaii that requires no taxpayer investment to maintain: coastal waterways.

Over the years the state has funded numerous passenger ferry service demonstrations between West Oahu and downtown Honolulu that ultimately failed to thrive. A primary factor to these failures was the less-than-optimum hull design technologies for passenger comfort in rough waters. Another reason was the dearth of political support, citing cost factors. The Superferry suffered the same fate a few years later, purportedly because of environmental impact issues but more likely, I suspect, because it challenged interisland air and other commercial transportation interests.

The opportunity remains today to provide reliable, comfortable, high-speed passenger ferry services to connect East and West Oahu with Honolulu utilizing technologies that have been developed in Hawaii and/or are already in use here, and that would significantly reduce Oahu’s traffic congestion.

SWATH (Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull) is a hull design currently used on Kilo Moana, the University of Hawaii’s preeminent oceanographic research vessel. This configuration connects the superstructure via thin struts to two displacement hulls more than 20 feet below the water’s surface. The hulls are not affected by wave action because they are well below the surface, thus providing a very comfortable and stable ride.

Other hull designs developed and demonstrated here could guarantee similar comfort to commuting passengers.

A local firm, Navatek Ltd., built and demonstrated a variety of vessels for the Navy that featured state-of-the-art hull designs that aimed to improve hydrodynamic efficiency and passenger comfort. All of these projects should be re-evaluated for their application to fast ferry passenger service.

A good example is the SLICE vessel, developed here by the Office of Naval Research. A variant of the SWATH design, SLICE was tested in Oahu coastal waters as a technology demonstrator with the ultimate goal of use for intra- and inter-island passenger ferry service. SLICE employs four short submerged displacement hulls rather than the two longer hulls featured by the SWATH design, enabling much higher speeds and lower wake wash at lower cost and providing a very stable, comfortable ride.

Catamaran and trimaran-hulled vessels are other common ferry configurations that do well in inland waters but are not as efficient in higher sea states.

One of the passenger ferry demonstrations funded by the Department of Transportation about 17 years ago was the Wikiwiki ferry connecting West Oahu with downtown — a catamaran hydrofoil that provided a fast, comfortable ride in moderately rough waters but was expensive to operate and never developed significant ridership due to the demonstration project’s limited duration.

But whatever the shortfalls with ferry passenger studies and demonstrations in the past, with the specter of the multibillion-dollar rail system looming with no long-term fiscal relief in sight, it is past time to take another extended look at this more effective and less costly transportation option.

We should take advantage of the technologies developed here and the natural resources in Hawaii to create and sustain a ferry transportation system that will actually reduce traffic congestion and truly serve the needs of the commuting public.

Dick Porter is a retired Navy captain and former Lockheed Martin executive involved in ship design and construction programs in Hawaii.