Craftsmen United, Inc. of Port Townsend delivered the first of several modules to Washington State Ferries Jan. 24.

Two exhaust stacks, one port and one starboard, are for the M/V Chimacum, a new Olympic Class ferry. The first was delivered to Nichols Brothers Boat Builders of Freeland, on Whidbey Island, which is building the ferry's superstructure.

The Chimacum is the third of four 144-car ferries. Two are already finished and in service: the Tokitae on the Mukilteo-Clinton route, and the Samish on the Anacortes-San Juan Islands route. The hulls are built by Vigor Industrial in Seattle.

Dan Wiggins, president of Craftsmen United, said 21 people worked on the stacks, which are 88 feet long, 7 feet wide and 25 feet tall.

"[They were] built outside, in a very small area," Wiggins said. "We're just spilling out all over the place." Weather was a challenge while building as well as delivering the stacks.

On Jan. 24, the modules were placed on a Lakenwelder barge by a 90-ton crane owned by Mike Hogan of Oceanview Heavy Hauling. The barge was pushed by All American Tug Company out of Port Townsend's Boat Haven marina with some difficulty, Wiggins said; at one point, the barge got stuck against some pilings.

"The Lakenwelder barge is a big barge, the modules have windage, and it was a little windy," he said. The barge is 30 feet wide and 110 feet long, he said. "They had a hard time getting out of the marina."

Wiggins delivered another section of the exhaust stacks with his own 78-foot landing craft. The module was loaded Monday afternoon, Feb. 1, and Wiggins expected to leave around 1 a.m. Feb. 2 to catch favorable tides.

That vessel is called Plan Sea, Wiggins said. "Everybody else calls it the morning after pill," he noted, as a typical example of boatyard humor.

Craftsmen United is also going to build the Chimacum's pickle forks, Wiggins said, "the front part that kind of curves around and the ramp that goes up" on the ends of the ferry.

"We are a small company doing big things," said Wiggins, 55. "We're also building an aluminum superstructure for a high-speed catamaran." His son Daniel, 34, is in charge of that, he noted.

"Family first," said Wiggins, who has six grandkids. "I'm going to teach them all how to work, and hopefully we can keep this opportunity going for everybody."

Business is brisk. "We've got 360 tons of steel to get out of here," he said. They're also about to build a bow for a cruise ship, among other projects.

Craftsmen United currently occupies a 50-foot by 100-foot building, plus a few portable buildings. "We keep all our troubles under one roof," Wiggins said, though sometimes the projects are so big they need to be worked on outside.

"These kind of projects appeal to us, bigger projects." In 2013, with Foss Maritime, they built an aluminum 20-car ferry in pieces, trucked them to the shores of Lake Roosevelt, above the Grand Coulee Dam, and assembled that ferry for the Washington Department of Transportation.