Tillikum (ship)
The Tillikum off Vashon Island, October 2012
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The Tillikum is a 1959 in service ferry the US shipping company Washington State Ferries and belongs Evergreen State class at. The ship is the oldest unit of the state ferry operator and has been operating between the San Juan Islands since 2017 .
history
The Tillikum was built as the third and last unit of the Evergreen State class in the shipyard of the Puget Sound Bridge and Dredging Company on Puget Sound and was put into service in 1959 on the route from Seattle to Bainbridge Island .
After the introduction of the larger Super-Class in 1968, the Tillikum switched to ferry service between Edmonds and Kingston , where it remained until the early 1980s. After the ship from the 1981 Chelan was replaced, it spent a decade mainly placed in the function of a replacement vessel if any of the ferries failed repairs due.
In the early 1990s, the Tillikum was reactivated and was henceforth used on the route from Fauntleroy , Vashon Island and Southworth . After almost a quarter of a century in service, the ship was again replaced by a newer unit in 2015 and assigned as a replacement ship.
The Tillikum has been sailing between the San Juan Islands since its older sister ship Klahowya was decommissioned in 2017 . A planned retirement of the oldest active ship in the Washington State Ferries fleet since then has been postponed to 2023. In February 2019, the shipping company celebrated the ferry's 60th birthday by installing two badges on board.