DEAN SENSUI / DSENSUI@STARBULLETIN.COM
The state recently built a passenger ferry terminal at Pier 19 that sits unused.
Ferry travel has had
a rough history in Hawaii
The state's new interisland ferry terminal at Pier 19 was completed a year ago but has yet to handle its first ferry. The planned Hawaii Superferry would dock there, but it is not expected to start until 2006.
The new proposal comes after several decades of talk and a few failed attempts to get a ferry going. State officials have long supported the idea as an alternative to complete reliance on airlines for interisland travel and Gov. Linda Lingle has voiced her approval.
But the long history of inaction and failures is bound to raise skepticism.
With much fanfare a steamship called Hualalai set off from Honolulu in January 1966, with its operators vowing to make three runs a week between Honolulu and the Kona side of the Big Island. It was out of business before the end of the year.
In 1975, Seaflite launched its hydrofoil system -- with jet-powered boats, designed to "fly" across the water at high speeds -- linking Honolulu, Maui, Kauai and the Big Island. The vessels had problems dealing with high waves and occasionally hit objects such as floating logs, damaging their foils and forcing them to travel much slower. It was never clear whether Seaflite was economically viable, since its parent company went broke for other reasons in 1978 and the Hawaii operation ceased.
In 2001, the Aloha Tower Development Corp. proposed a ferry terminal and real estate development for the vacant Piers 5 & 6, now used only by sightseeing and dinner-cruise vessels. In February 2002, a group called Rainbow Pier Development, launched by Nevada investor Matt Dillon, proposed a mix of ferry terminal, office, hotel and residential buildings at piers 5 & 6, supporting an interisland ferry system.
The group did a lot of work on the project and said it would run jetfoil craft -- like Seaflite's but technologically advanced to get around the operating problems that Seaflite had -- serving Maui and the Big Island. Rainbow even got the state Legislature to approve a $44 million revenue bond to get the ferry started.
The idea was pursued this year by Virginia-based Sunland Group, headed by former Honolulu resident Bernard Furey, but that group's proposal was thrown out by the ATDC as inadequate.
ATDC instead reached an agreement with Texas developer Kenneth Hughes, whose U.C. Urban is proposing an office-residential complex with a land-transit hub. While details are a long way off, ATDC said the ferry terminal is still very much a part of the plan.
Meanwhile there have been some attempts at intra-island ferries, based on the notion of moving West Oahu commuters to downtown Honolulu by sea.
From October 1999 to December 2000 a trial project sponsored by the state Department of Transportation ran the Wikiwiki ferry, using a Norwegian-built 136-passenger "Foilcat" with speeds up to 50 knots. It ran from Kalaeloa Harbor to Pier 8 in downtown Honolulu. The project also tried Iroquois Point and Middle Loch to Honolulu. Altogether some 35,000 people used the service in the $3.5 million state-funded trial, but business dropped off sharply when a $3 fare was introduced.
In 1992, a test project by the state Department of Transportation called HOTS (Hawaii Ocean Transits System) ran a motor-driven "wave piercing" catamaran from Barbers Point to Honolulu, but stopped after three months because of lack of support from the commuting public.
