Hydrogen-fueled ferry stops in Newport

The ferry, named “Sea Change,” was not built to operate in the open ocean, and it did not navigate here under its own power. Instead, it was being towed from Bellingham to San Francisco by the ocean tugboat Seabold, owned by a towing company called Star Marine, which contracted with All American Marine to do this transport.

Kent Lowe, one of four crewmembers aboard the tugboat, spoke to the News-Times last week while docked at the International Terminal. He said the ocean conditions got a bit rough during what was expected to be a four-day trip down the coast to San Francisco, so they pulled into Yaquina Bay to wait for the ocean to settle down a bit.

“It’s a delicate tow, so we’re not risking anything,” Lowe said. While they were docked in Newport, the Stonewall Bank Buoy offshore was showing 15-foot waves. “With this tow, we’re being pretty conservative about it and cautious, (but) it’s doing better than we thought it would out there.” When asked when they may be able to continue their journey down the coast, he said, “We’re just watching the sea conditions. It’s not so much right here, but what’s ahead of us. The port’s been really accommodating, so that’s nice.”

Aaron Bretz, operations director for the Port of Newport, said on Tuesday of this week that the tugboat crew was expected to leave Yaquina Bay that night to continue towing the ferry to its final destination.

Construction on the Sea Change actually began in California, but when issues arose with the shipyard doing the work down there, it was towed up to Bellingham, Washington for the work to be finished. Sokolik said this project has been in the works for the past five years.

“There’s a gentleman, Dr. Joe Pratt, with Zero Emission Industries, that conceived of this when he was working for Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque,” Sokolik said. “He envisioned it and got it started. Switch Maritime then purchased the vessel Zero Emission had started on spec, and then there was some issues with a yard down in California that started it, and when that relationship broke down, they brought the hull up to us.”

The project’s original name was Water-Go-Round. “That comes from the fact that the hydrogen we’re using starts off as water and then we use green energy to crack it into hydrogen and oxygen,” Sokolik said. “We use that hydrogen in the fuel cells, and the fuel cells recombine it with oxygen in the air to water again. So the water goes around, and we get power from it.”

The hydrogen is not made on the ferry itself. “We are bringing in hydrogen that’s made shore side,” he said, “but it is the green hydrogen, which is made from solar or wind power.”

The Sea Change has been in Bellingham the past several years. “Three years, almost to the day,” Sokolik said. “It’s been in the water for about a year now — that’s because of COVID. Everybody’s working from home, so there’s not much demand for passenger ferries. When it launched a year ago it was kind of a big thing, and then it got mothballed for a while.”

Being part of this groundbreaking project has been exciting for All American Marine, Sokolik said. “There’s a few other hydrogen projects in the works at the moment, but as far as I know, we’re the only 100 percent hydrogen project out there. It’s partly funded by grants from California Air Resources Board (CARB) — it certainly couldn’t have gone forward without that.”

Once on site in San Francisco, the Sea Change will be operated under the direction of the Water Emergency Transportation Authority. “That’s the umbrella operation over a whole bunch of commuter ferries,” said Sokolik. “It will be going between two ferry docks as part of an existing service that has a couple boats on it.”