MARAD Is Selling the Superferrys

This makes no sense at all to me, except that when it comes to team players in government - MARAD is a bad teammate. MARAD is selling the Hawaii Superferrys, Alakai and Huakai, to the highest bidder. Here is how this is most likely to go down...

Some operator is likely to purchase the vessels, and sometime in the very near future the Navy will charter both vessels. The Navy will then pay $10-15 million more to company that operates those vessels than the Navy would pay if MARAD simply transferred the vessels to the Navy today. That is insane, but that is how all of this will almost certainly end up.

The US Navy is not big enough to turn down 2 high speed vessels they are only going to charter in the future anyway. The government owns these ships, what valid reason is there to give up ownership when the US Navy is currently buying similar ships new?

What should happen is the House Appropriations Committee should add language to the FY12 budget bill directing MARAD to transfer the two SuperFerries from Title XI holdings (bankrupcy) to the National Defense Reserve Fleet in a Retention Status with a militarily useful classification. That way the Navy can hold on to the two vessels until they can figure out where to get the money for upgrades and operations. There are all kinds of options really, simply forcing MARAD to reclassify the ships to recognize the fact that they are something useful to the military would be enough to salvage the situation, because if the vessels are in the NDSF fleet and militarily useful, then MARAD can not fire sale them like they are trying to do right now.

Congress is often highly critical of the military for lacking the flexibility to rapidly adapt to acquisition and procurement opportunities. In my opinion, the two Hawaii Superferry's present an opportunity for Congress to lead by example.

The link above is from the sales announcement listed in the Federal Register, and lists the details of both Superferry's. I don't know about you, but I can think of dozens of ways those two vessels could be better than an 85% solution for a great number of operational needs today.