Want Your Own Ferry? It’ll Cost You $4.5 Million

SEATTLE (AP) — The Washington state ferry Chinook is for sale on eBay.

The ferry has been mothballed at the Eagle Harbor maintenance yard for the past four years.

State officials put the boat on the online auction block Thursday night, with an asking price of at least $4.5 million.

As of Friday afternoon, there were no bidders. It will remain for sale until Feb. 24.

The state had planned to sell the Chinook and the Snohomish, the passenger-ferries that ran between Bremerton and Seattle until the state pulled out of the route. The state was hoping to get $9 million for the sister ships.

But just days before the auction was to begin in November, Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond beached the state’s four steel-electric boats because of damaged hulls, and the Snohomish was put on the Port Townsend-Keystone route as a temporary measure.

Now the Snohomish is being used between Bremerton and Seattle, to replace the ferry Yakima that ran into a breakwater last week and was damaged.

The state decided to go ahead with selling the Chinook to give money to King County, which is beginning its own passenger ferry service between Seattle and Vashon Island.