Squeeze play for M.V. Karl

Karl the Fog lives in San Francisco, where his soft, mysterious contours come and go as they blanket the city.

Karl the ferry lives in La Conner for now – but will soon call San Francisco home, too. The quad-engine passenger vessel ferry was pushed out of the Mavrik building last Friday and will start sea trials at the end of next week. Presuming positive results, by mid-December M.V. Karl will be on his way to join Mavrik-built siblings M.V. Dorado and M.V. Delphinus in the San Francisco Bay Ferry system.

M.V. Karl got his name in a public naming contest open to Bay Area school children. Three hundred suggestions were submitted, 3000-plus residents voted, and the winner...well, let's just say that Karl the Fog has his own website, his own X account, recently published a book, and has even been a Jeopardy! clue. How could the other 299 entries get any traction?

One did, though. Now under construction, Mavrik ferry number four bears the name of the genus of sea lions that loll around wharfs in the Marina District. M.V. Zalophus will be launched next summer.