The Alaska Marine Highway System’s draft schedule for this coming fall and winter is the same as past years for Wrangell — one sailing each week in each direction through town — but there are large gaps without any service for communities in Southwest Alaska and Prince William Sound.

Wrangell will be served by the Columbia until late November, when it will leave service for its annual winter maintenance and repairs.

There will be a one-week gap in service between Bellingham, Washington, and Southeast Alaska until the Kennicott picks up the route from the Columbia the first week of December.

“That week between the Columbia and Kennicott is to allow time for crew to transfer. … There’s a transition period needed,” Sam Dapcevich, a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Transportation, said in an email on July 10.

“A couple of years ago, I believe it took about two weeks. Last year and this, we’ve been able to get it down to one week.”

The Kennicott has been out of service all year for replacement of its generators and other overhaul and maintenance work at a Puget Sound shipyard. The generators project was estimated at more than $24 million, according to an Alaska Marine Highway System presentation this past spring.

Under the draft fall and winter schedule released last week, covering Oct. 1 through April 30, Wrangell would get a northbound stop every Sunday and a southbound stop every Wednesday, the same as it has been for several years.

But with a dwindling and aging fleet requiring annual maintenance, the state ferry system will provide no service to Prince William Sound from the first week of October through mid-January when the Aurora leaves the route for its winter overhaul.

That will mean no service for more than three months to Valdez, Cordova, Whittier and Chenega.

The Tustumena, which serves the Southwest communities of Kodiak, Seldovia, Homer, Port Lions and Ouzinkie, will maintain its regular service October through mid-January when it will head to a shipyard for winter overhaul, leaving the communities with no ferry service until May.

Public comments on the schedule are due by Tuesday, July 22, and can be emailed to dot.amhs.comments@alaska.gov. The state issued the draft schedule on July 8, allowing two weeks for public comment.

The ferry system continues to hold the Matanuska out of service due to extensive and expensive rusted steel, with a decision expected to sell the vessel. The Matanuska, at 62 years old, is the senior vessel in the fleet.

The Tazlina, one of the ferry system’s newest ships, christened in 2018, is in the shipyard for remodeling to add crew quarters to accommodate longer voyages.

Ferry system management has an extensive worklist for the 51-year-old Columbia during its winter layup, including an overhaul of the steering system, a 12,000-hour overhaul of the main engines, adding additional plate coolers to the main engines, retubing a boiler, sewage tank cleaning, inspections, paint, lubrication and more.

In past years, winter overhauls of state ferries have been completed at the Vigor Ketchikan shipyard, which is owned by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority and leased to Vigor.

But the state agency this spring notified Vigor it was ending the lease and would bring in a new operator for the shipyard. Vigor has started laying off staff in preparation to end its work in Ketchikan, and the state has yet to name a new operator for the yard.

“At this time, we are optimistic that AIDEA will have a new operator in place by December for the (Columbia) work to be completed at the Ketchikan shipyard,” Dapcevich said in an email on July 11.