PH Red Cross to buy Alaska borough’s idled ferry for $1.75M

The $78 million ferry, a prototype catamaran-style landing craft built for the U.S. Navy, will be sold to the Philippine Red Cross for $1.75 million.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — There may finally be a buyer for a multimillion dollar ferry that’s never seen service.

The Alaska Journal of Commerce reports Matanuska-Susitna borough officials approved the $1.75 million sale of the ferry Susitna to the Philippine Red Cross.

The $78 million ferry was a prototype catamaran-style landing craft built for the U.S. Navy, and it was donated to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.

But it has sat docked hundreds of miles away in Ketchikan for years because it has no place to dock in Anchorage. The 195-foot ferry was intended to make roundtrip jaunts across Knik Arm.

Borough Manager John Moosey says they are paying about $30,000 per month in maintenance, moorage and insurance.

Federal authorities will have to approve the sale because the buyer is foreign entity.

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