The maintenance team keeps the geriatric machinery working — most of the time. Replacement parts for such old, specialized equipment can be hard to find, said maintenance chief Jeff Stander. Something’s always breaking, and workers sometimes have to fabricate components from bulk steel.
The biggest crew is the men and women who work the locks, guiding boats, shouting directions, handling lines and staffing the control tower. Anything that can happen will, said Mike Hand, a 14-year veteran with the enviable title of lock master.
He’s seen boats sink in the locks, and a tug underestimate its beam and get stuck. People fall overboard. Couples scream at each other. A pair of kayakers once was swept over the spillway — and survived. When a tug pushing a gravel barge lost throttle control, the Locks crew had to scramble to prevent lines from breaking and keep the heavy load from smashing the gate. “They slowed it just enough that it only made a small dent,” Hand said.
The Locks were constructed in part to spur an industrial boom, and for several decades, mills, shipyards and maritime operations proliferated on Lake Union. But a hoped-for Navy base went to Bremerton, and by the 1960s, pleasure boats outstripped commercial. Lakefront industries have been increasingly squeezed out by condos, yacht brokers, restaurants and parks.
On a Thursday afternoon in late summer, the ratio of commercial to recreational boats at the large lock is 1:9. The single working vessel is a fishing tender on its way back from Alaska.