The ferry M/V Puyallup will be off the Bainbridge Island-Seattle route for several weeks after the boat ran over a cable or some other underwater obstruction, Washington State Ferries officials said Wednesday.

“It appears to have run over a cable or chain of some sort,” said WSF spokesman Ian Sterling.

The cable or chain wrapped around the vessel’s propeller shaft, Sterling said, “and caused some pretty serious damage.”

The ship will need to go into dry dock for repairs.

The loss of the vessel prompted the cancelation of two sailings early Wednesday morning between Seattle and Bainbridge. WSF started repositioning other ferries Wednesday morning to restore capacity to the busy Bainbridge run.

Sterling said WSF does not know when the damage occurred, but more details will come to light once the incident is further investigated.

He said state ferries encounter hazards all the time, and noted a recent incident where a ferry snagged a fishing net.

The object that damaged the Puyallup was not recovered, Sterling said.

“We don’t have the foreign object itself,” he said.

“It was obviously something metal,” Sterling added.

Divers conducted an underwater inspection of the Puyallup Wednesday morning and found mangled bolts inside a propellor shaft seal, which indicated that something foreign had wrapped around the shaft and caused the damage.

Ferry service between Bainbridge and Seattle was cut to one boat until the M/V Issaquah was shifted to the route.

WSF said the 144-vehicle ferry M/V Hyak was being moved to replace the 124-vehicle ferry Issaquah beginning with the 11:25 a.m. Wednesday sailing from Seattle to Bainbridge Island.

The Issaquah replaced the Hyak on the Seattle-Bremerton route, beginning with the 11:10 a.m. sailing from Seattle.