New San Francisco ferry delivered
Kirk Moore
Dec. 3, 2019
workboat.com
The Pyxis operates on the San Francisco Bay Ferry's Vallejo route. WETA photo
The first U.S. passenger ferry with Tier 4 emissions controls went into service with the San Francisco Bay Ferry system in March. The 445-passenger high speed Pyxis (pronounced “pik-sis”) is the fifth new ferry built for the fleet since the Hydrus-class started in 2017, and serves the growing Vallejo route.
“They operate on a longer route than the Hydrus boats. We’re a one-hour trip,” said Martin Robbins, general manager of the Bay Ferry’s Vallejo division. “These are waterjet boats so they’re designed for 34 knots. They will make 37 or 38 knots running light.”
Delivered in February by Dakota Creek Industries Inc., Anacortes, Wash., the 142.7’x39.4’x5.4′, all-aluminum Pyxis is the first new boat on the northern bay route since 1997, and the first of three to be delivered by the end of 2019. It is very similar in design to the earlier waterjet ferries also conceived by designers at Advanced Multihull Designs (AMD) of Australia, sized up to accommodate steady demand growth on the route, said Robbins.
“It’s largely the same design, 2.6 meters (8.5’) longer so we can get passenger capacity up from the mid-300s to 445,” he said. “We seen steady growth for five to six years. We slowed down a little bit, and that might have been because of our capacity limits. The parking lots are full and we’ve had to turn people away. Hopefully these new boats will help turn that around.”
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Sister ships Lyra and Vela are scheduled for delivery in June and December. WETA officials say the Pyxis was designed and built at a cost of $23 million. Funding sources included Federal Transit Administration grants, bridge toll revenue, State Proposition 1B and State Transit Assistance.