Ed Friedrich, here Kitsap Sun:
[Kitsap Transit’s Rich Passage 1 heads towards the Port Orchard Marina on Wednesday. (MEEGAN M. REID/KITSAP SUN photo)]
BREMERTON — Seven years after Kitsap Transit’s wake research project began, the agency is finally ready to start testing a passenger ferry that could rip through Rich Passage without tearing up the beach. Beginning this week, the Rich Passage I will be put through the paces in Port Orchard Bay, between Illahee and Bainbridge Island, before graduating to its namesake waterway next spring. The trials have been a long time coming.
"I’m a raving lunatic optimist, so I always thought we would get here," Kitsap Transit executive director Dick Hayes said of on-water testing. "It was much more important to get here with the right boat than to just get here period. I’m real happy with where we are."
Read more: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2011/oct/29/research-ferry-wake-tests-beginning/#ixzz1cTlXmN8M