Kennicott's debut.

• Author: Bonham, Nicole A.
• Position: Passenger ferry serving southeast Alaska

Though late to the dance, the state ferry Kennicott is no wallflower. Alaska's newest passenger ferry went into service this summer, plowing home waters for the first time in July on a shakedown cruise through Southeast. Despite a series of mini-controversies that plagued the 382-foot vessel even before she left her Mississippi shipyard, the $80-million Kennicott has attracted enough positive attention this season to mostly fill her passenger berths.

That's what Alaska Marine Highway system manager Capt. Bob Doll likes to see. According to Doll, the future of the Kennicott's route - and that of any other ferry - rests with travelers' bookings.

"We do not service communities, we serve passengers," Doll emphasized. "If a community has the passenger demand and would (like to) have us go there, then that's an obligation we have. And that's a goal we'll never abandon ... it has to be, in part, a business decision."

The vessel offers 85 staterooms with 266 berths, and features a new "roomette" concept. The roomettes are cheap, scaled-down versions of cabins, meant to offer walk-on passengers some shelter and privacy. There are 24 of them on the Kennicott, each featuring two berths. Roomette fare from Ketchikan to Wrangell starts at $15. From Ketchikan to Juneau, a room with a view costs $34.

With a maximum beam of 85 feet, and draft at 17.5 feet, the Kennicott carries up to 120 vehicles and nearly 750 passengers on Southeast runs for the Alaska Marine Highway System. It also transports some 500 passengers on its newly implemented cross-Gulf route. That Gulf of Alaska passage takes travelers from Bellingham, Wash. north to Juneau and, on a monthly basis, continues on to stops in Valdez and Seward.

An 80,000-pound-capacity vehicle elevator is perhaps the Kennicott's strongest feature. "Almost everything else in the ship is built around that elevator," Doll said. "The reason that elevator has to be there-the reason it's so important to the ship-is that the Kennicott has to serve every port from Bellingham to Unalaska, potentially at least."

The Kennicott is the first large ocean-going passenger vessel designed and built in the U.S. since 1952. It's also the first new ferry for Alaska since the Aurora began operations in 1977. Built by Halter Marine, Inc., of Moss Point, Miss., the Kennicott first caught the public's eye when television cameras captured her clumsy transit off the shipyard grid during christening ceremonies. Her awkward splash into...