{"id":193270,"date":"2026-02-25T16:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T16:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/193270\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T16:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T16:28:07","slug":"nichols-brothers-lays-keel-for-san-franciscos-all-electric-ferry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/193270\/","title":{"rendered":"Nichols Brothers lays keel for San Francisco&#8217;s all-electric ferry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>February 25, 2026<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.workboat.com\/author\/eric-haun\" title=\"Eric Haun\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> <img data-original=\"https:\/\/s3.divcom.com\/www.workboat.com\/images\/Eric_Author_Bio.jpg.medium.800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" class=\"img-responsive\"\/>  <\/a> <img data-original=\"https:\/\/s3.divcom.com\/www.workboat.com\/images\/1770327341636.jpeg.medium.800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" class=\"img-responsive\"\/> Nichols Brothers Boat Builders held a keel-laying ceremony for the first of two 400-passenger battery-electric ferries under construction for San Francisco Bay Ferry. San Francisco Bay Ferry photo. <\/p>\n<p>Nichols Brothers Boat Builders\u00a0held a keel-laying ceremony for the first of two 400-passenger battery-electric ferries under construction for\u00a0San Francisco Bay Ferry.<\/p>\n<p>Nichols Brothers Boat Builders (NBBB), Freeland, Wash., held a keel-laying ceremony for the first of two 400-passenger battery-electric ferries under construction for San Francisco Bay Ferry.<\/p>\n<p>The 142&#8217;1&#8243;x34&#8217;9&#8243; Subchapter K aluminum catamarans are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.workboat.com\/nichols-brothers-to-build-two-electric-ferries-for-san-francisco\" title=\"Nichols Brothers to build two electric ferries for San Francisco\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">being constructed<\/a> under the agency\u2019s Rapid Electric Emission Free (REEF) Ferry Program, which aims to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.workboat.com\/san-francisco-moves-toward-zero-emissions-ferry-fleet\" title=\"San Francisco moves toward zero-emissions ferry fleet\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">transition the fleet<\/a> to zero-emission propulsion technology.<\/p>\n<p>The ferries will operate at 25 knots on central Bay routes, connecting Oakland and Alameda with San Francisco. The series&#8217; first vessel is scheduled to be delivered in 2028.<\/p>\n<p>The vessels will each feature four independent azimuthing Hydromaster Series E propulsion units with 625-kW drives and a modular, scalable 1,603-kWh Echandia energy storage system. Charging infrastructure will include MCS charging at a total of 5 MW, a DC grid, and DC conversion technology.<\/p>\n<p>The vessels will recharge through custom-designed electric charging floats, which also serve as boarding pathways during passenger loading and unloading.<\/p>\n<p>Incat Crowther is leading vessel design, with electrical engineering support from Ockerman Automation Consulting. W\u00e4rtsil\u00e4 North America is serving as the electrical propulsion system integrator.<\/p>\n<p>In December, another shipbuilder,\u00a0All American Marine, Bellingham, Wash., <a href=\"https:\/\/www.workboat.com\/all-american-lays-keel-for-san-franciscos-new-battery-electric-ferry\" title=\"All American lays keel for San Francisco&#039;s new battery-electric ferry\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">held a keel-laying ceremony<\/a> for the first of up to four 150-passenger all-electric passenger vessels it is constructing for San Francisco Bay Ferry.<\/p>\n<p>San Francisco Bay Ferry is also repowering its 400-passenger Hydrus-class vessels to run on electric propulsion.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"February 25, 2026 Nichols Brothers Boat Builders held a keel-laying ceremony for the first of two 400-passenger battery-electric&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-193270","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-san-francisco","9":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","10":"tag-san-francisco-news","11":"tag-sf","12":"tag-sf-headlines","13":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}