A flying ferry sounds like a flight of fancy, but it may soon be the way some waterborne commuters get across Puget Sound.
Two local endeavors are aiming to build passenger-only boats with hydrofoils — underwater wings that lift a boat’s hull out of the water, lessening drag on the vessel for a faster, less choppy journey and producing little to no wake, allowing them to sail close to shore without disturbing banks or piers.
These efforts, though still in the works, could promise a greener commute and a win for climate measures that may well best Washington State Ferries. The state is still years away from building new hybrid electric ferries to replace its aging fleet of diesel guzzlers.
Belfast, Northern Ireland-based Artemis Technologies is partnering with Delta Marine, a local maker of luxury yachts, with promises of a new fleet of walk-on “efoiling” ferries for local travelers.
And Kitsap Transit, which began foot-ferry service in 2017, has been working toward building an “electric fast foil ferry” since 2020, when it received its first dose of public dollars to explore the possibility.
Roadblocks stand in the way of each project.
Kitsap needs more public funding to build its first foil ferry, estimated at about $15 million, a questionable ask as lawmakers in Olympia stare down a gaping budget hole.
Artemis, for its part, has its local manufacturer, but it doesn’t yet have a customer to buy a boat.
It’s not exactly settled where these boats will operate, if and when they sail Puget Sound. The technology is not yet advanced enough to work on the large car-carrying vessels of WSF’s fleet — and state law prohibits WSF from operating passenger-only ferries — but the boats would work on the small, passenger-only routes run by not just Kitsap but also King County.
Kitsap’s work has shown that the boats may go farther — north to Bellingham, perhaps, or south to Tacoma.
Still, both ventures envision a return to a “mosquito fleet” of small, walk-on ferries crisscrossing Puget Sound, similar to the system that moved commuters before the state took over and built bigger and bigger boats.
Artemis’ flying boat
Artemis — named after the ancient Greek goddess of the hunt and nature — got its start in 2006 as a high-performance racing team that eventually competed in the America’s Cup, an international sailing competition.
In 2017, the company spun off Artemis Technologies, with the goal of using its racing technology in the commercial maritime industry, including for passenger ferries.
Today, the company has contracts with a few European ferry providers, and recently opened an office in New York’s Brooklyn Navy Yard to assist with its foray into the U.S. market.
Its racing technology is ideal for passenger ferries, said David Tyler, who co-founded the company.
“The ride is rock solid. You don’t have the loud diesel engines,” he said. “It’s a far more enjoyable experience and reduces the sensation of seasickness.”
Tyler has been traveling around the U.S. marketing his company’s wares. Twice in recent months, he’s been in Seattle pitching at ferry-focused conferences. For this story, he spoke via videoconference from the Passenger Vessel Association’s annual conference in Savannah, Ga., where he was on board an Artemis EF-12 outfitted as “a luxury water taxi.”
Its partnership with Delta Marine, which will manufacture the carbon fiber boats, lets the company build ferries “specifically for Puget Sound,” Tyler said.
In an email, Michelle Jones, vice president at Delta Marine, said 50 years ago her company began building commercial fishing vessels but is positioned to build the next era of commuter ferries. The company makes luxury yachts using a composite process “that rivals the aerospace industry’s latest construction techniques.”
Tyler described the carbon fiber composite as “half the weight and five times the strength” of the aluminum builds common in ferries.
Both Tyler and Jones said it was important that Delta Marine is local — the company’s shipyard sits on the Duwamish Waterway just west of Boeing Field — because the company could quickly repair any hull damage and return a ferry to service with little delay.
“We’ve had racing incidents where yachts have been T-boned and there’s a big hole in the side,” Tyler said. “As the America’s Cup team, we’ve had it fixed overnight and sailing the next day.”
Tyler said he’s had “positive dialogues” with King and Kitsap counties, as well as private companies, but has yet to strike a deal.
Al Sanders, a King County Metro spokesperson, said the agency is exploring high-efficiency, zero-emission ferries for use on its water taxi service, which has three boats and began operating in 2009 linking downtown Seattle with West Seattle and Vashon Island. The county’s Marine Division has been in contact with Artemis and other companies about building those vessels but is far from doing so.
Regardless, Tyler was hopeful.
“We see Seattle as a huge opportunity, in particular,” Tyler said.
Artemis’ boats can travel as fast as 40 mph and lift about 2 or 3 feet out of the water. That’s about as fast as Kitsap and King counties’ diesel-powered foot ferries. WSF boats top out between 15 and 20 mph.
However, Artemis’ crafts would be much more efficient than existing ferries. Tyler said his company’s electric propulsion system would reduce fuel costs up to 85% compared with high-speed diesel ferries, and at a manufacturing cost of about 1 1/2 times that of conventional fast ferries.
The efficiency comes from its use of aerospace industry innovations. As Tyler said, “We’re building a flying boat, I guess, is the obvious thing to say.”
In 2020, Artemis was part of a £33 million joint venture with airplane manufacturer Bombardier to develop a zero-emissions ferry, along with Belfast Harbour and universities in Northern Ireland.
Two years later, designs for an electric 150-passenger ferry were released, as were plans to test it between Belfast and the Welsh city of Bangor on a pilot project by Condor Ferries, which operates between the British Isles, Channel Islands and France. At the time, Artemis said the ferry — named Zero — would begin running in 2024, but that’s been delayed to later this year.
Artemis’ American operation is a few years behind, but Tyler said things will begin soon.
“We’re aiming to begin building later this year,” Tyler said, adding that he hoped “to see something on the water by next summer.”
Kitsap’s funding “uncertainty”
John Clauson, Kitsap Transit’s executive director, knows his way around hydrofoils.
As a kid, Clauson rode with his parents on a hydrofoil built by Boeing, an experience he likened to flying, with seat belts, “flight attendants” and the boat lifting 10 feet out of the water.
Clauson was also in Georgia recently, where he rode Artemis’ water taxi.
“It was very sleek, very comfortable,” he said of Artemis’ boat, saying comparing Boeing’s to today’s models isn’t really fair. “You’re talking about a 1960 Ford pickup to a Mustang today. There really is no comparison.”
Clauson’s agency — with seven fast ferries connecting Bremerton, Kingston and Southworth to downtown Seattle — is currently in the process of building a small-scale prototype of a 150-passenger, all-electric fast ferry with a foil.
The agency said the advantage of such a boat over its current fleet is the fuel and operational savings it would bring. The agency estimates that a fast foil ferry would reduce net carbon dioxide emissions by 74% and cost 35% less to operate than the diesel-powered vessels it currently uses.
Kitsap’s project sprang out of a regional transportation effort to reduce emissions and the number of cars on Interstate 5. That effort — called the Joint Innovation Project — included Kitsap Transit as well as the ports of Anacortes, Bellingham and Skagit, and Tacoma Power. It led to research funded by a $372,000 Federal Transit Administration grant in 2020 showing the feasibility of a hydrofoil ferry and estimated the boat’s cost at about $15 million.
In 2022, the Seattle-Bremerton route was chosen out of 45 potential routes as the conceptual run for such technology — meaning the ferry would be designed to travel round trip between Seattle and Bremerton, about 30 nautical miles, on a single battery charge.
The designs for Kitsap’s foil ferry prototype — by local naval architecture company Glosten and Anacortes-based marine engineering firm Bieker Boats — are complete.
Clauson said the scaled-down prototype will carry 20 people. About $1.2 million from the Washington Department of Commerce went to its design. Another $4 million in money generated by the state’s carbon market, or Climate Commitment Act, should be enough to cover the prototype’s construction, Clauson said, which must be done through a public bid.
With the budget troubles in Olympia, Clauson said he’s not banking on those state dollars until they’re in the county’s hands.
Financial support from the federal government is even less assured, Clauson said. Kitsap is still searching for U.S. Department of Transportation or FTA grant funding to pay for the design and construction of the full-size vessel and shoreside charging systems, among other things.
Considering the priorities of the Trump administration, funding for an all-electric ferry for the Seattle region seems like a longshot.
Sean Duffy’s first actions as Trump’s transportation secretary focused on ending the so-called “woke” policies of the Biden administration, rolling back “burdensome and costly regulations” and rescinding rules requiring state transportation departments to measure carbon dioxide emissions on highways.
The White House also blocked money for electric vehicle chargers, including $71 million for Washington, that was expected to go out under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program.
“We need federal funding,” Clauson said. “There’s a little bit of uncertainty going forward.”
