Tugboat Alyssa Ann hauls giant raft across Admiralty Inlet

A 2,100-horsepower tugboat from Seattle moved a giant raft across Admiralty Inlet off Lagoon Point over the weekend, putting a large tow in plain view from the south end of Whidbey Island. The vessel was Alyssa Ann, a longtime workboat built in 1966 in Louisiana and named for Alyssa Ann “Lissy” Moore, who died of cystic fibrosis at age 15.

Alyssa Ann is no small harbor tug. Tugboat listings describe it as a 2,100-horsepower towing vessel, and vessel records list it as IMO 7939078, a tug built in 1966. That history gives the crossing extra weight: this was a working boat with nearly six decades of service behind it, not a new arrival making a test run.

The route itself explains why the tow drew notice. University of Washington material describes Admiralty Inlet as the main entrance to Puget Sound, where the tidal ebb can reach more than 4 knots. At the constriction between Point Wilson and Admiralty Head, the inlet is about 5 kilometers across and roughly 60 meters deep, a profile that leaves little room for error when a large raft is moving through the channel.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife classifies the water as Marine Area 9, the Admiralty Inlet zone bounded by points including Partridge Point, Point Wilson, Possession Point and the Hood Canal Bridge. That puts the crossing in one of the region’s most heavily used marine corridors, where fishing boats, ferry traffic, workboats and Navy-related movement all share the same passage.

Lagoon Point, a private residential community on South Whidbey, looks out on that traffic regularly, but a giant raft on the move still stops the eye. In that setting, Alyssa Ann’s passage was more than a photogenic moment. It was a reminder that the island’s shoreline sits beside a working waterway, and that the marine economy around Whidbey still depends on tugs powerful enough to move oversized loads across Admiralty Inlet when the currents and routing allow it.