WATER TRANSIT AUTHORITY WAKE WASH IMPACTS ON-CALL CONTRACT
San Francisco Bay, California

The San Francisco Bay Area Water Transit Authority (WTA) is developing a bay-wide transit system of fast, passenger-only ferries to convey commuters on an integrated system of 13 routes throughout San Francisco Bay. Coast & Harbor Engineering (CHE) was selected in May 2004 as the WTA’s on-call coastal engineering consultant for all wake-related environmental impact studies for all future routes and route expansions currently planned through the year 2015. CHE is managing a team of consultants to evaluate coastal engineering, naval architecture and biological resource issues related to fast-ferry wakes. CHE performed the following analysis under their on-call contract:

		Developed the WTA’s Wake Wash Measurement Protocol. The Protocol defines standards for measurement, processing and analysis of wake wash, including field measurements, laboratory or CFD measurements.
		Developed wake wash performance specifications for acquisition of new 149-passenger catamaran vessels. Reviewed proposed vessel’s performance as predicted by laboratory studies and CFD.
		Performed comprehensive site-specific wake wash impact analyses for proposed ferry service to Berkeley, Hercules and Antioch. Analyses included Field data collection, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) of wake generation, wake wash transformation, impact evaluation and operational/engineering recommendations.
		Performed coastal analysis as part of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the South San Francisco Ferry Terminal.

Wakes generated by M/V “Mendocino” at 35 knots in 3m water depth