San Francisco Bay Ferry's Oakland-Alameda water shuttle returned to normal service, ending a three-week outage caused by a pair of outboard engine failures, the operator announced on Wednesday.
The 31-passenger pontoon boat Woodstock, which runs the short cross-estuary route between Alameda Landing and Jack London Square in Oakland, had been out of service since Aug. 5. The operator replaced both of the vessel's Suzuki 140-hp outboards and also completed welding repairs, work that was not part of the originally announced scope.
The first engine suffered a damaged head gasket that allowed saltwater into the powerhead, Tom Hall, director of operations and customer experience at San Francisco Bay Ferry, told WorkBoat earlier in August. The second engine had trouble holding rpm, and the cause was never pinned down after the operator decided to replace both units. The engines were relatively new but had accumulated substantial hours, mostly at low power given the short, slow-speed route. They were replaced like for like with new outboards supplied by H&M Marine Services, Sausalito, Calif.
The shuttle operates 345 trips per week, Tuesday through Sunday. More than 150,000 passengers, including 38,000 cyclists, have ridden the service over the past 12 months, according to the operator. Since the route launched in July 2024, Woodstock has run on 96% of its scheduled days.
The 45' boat was originally built as the tour boat Captain Jack in Buffalo, N.Y., and was purchased and modified for Bay Area service at Romero's Welding, Vallejo, Calif.
The service is funded through grants from the Alameda County Transportation Commission and the Bay Area Air District, along with contributions from the City of Alameda, the Alameda Transportation Management Association, the Port of Oakland, the West Alameda Transportation Demand Management Association, Jack London Square and the Jack London Improvement District.
A two-year extension of the shuttle was recently approved after a pilot that exceeded ridership projections. Operators plan to conduct a long-term feasibility study over the coming year on how a more robust and reliable version of the service could be sustained.
