In SSA deal, Shenandoah will move - a bit
The Tisbury selectmen voted Tuesday night to accept an agreement designed to forestall any action by the U.S Army Corps of Engineers that might have forced the Vineyard Haven schooners Shenandoah and Alabama to relocate outside the inner harbor.
Shenandoah, left, and Alabama have been moored together in Vineyard Haven Harbor for more than 30 years. File Photo by Ralph Stewart
The agreement is between the Steamship Authority (SSA) and Capt. Robert S. Douglas and his Coastwise Wharf Company, owner of the two schooners that have been familiar to Islanders and visitors for nearly four decades.
The compromise calls for Shenandoah's mooring radius to be shifted 50 feet away from the designated federal navigation channel in Tisbury Harbor that SSA ferries use entering and leaving their slips. The shift will be accomplished by moving the mooring 25 feet farther from the channel's southern edge and shortening the mooring chain by 25 feet.
Although the Steamship Authority had fretted from time to time about the proximity of the schooners' moorings to the channel the SSA vessels use, the issue came to a head in January 2007, following a series of cancellations that the SSA blamed on the schooners' location. For his part, Captain Douglas said that prevailing winds rarely cause the schooners' sterns to approach the channel boundary, and besides, the SSA vessels could shift to the north rather than the south slip on such intermittent occasions.
The SSA contended that when the wind blows hard from the southeast or south the sailing vessels swing on their moorings and extend their sterns toward the ferry channel. When that occurs, SSA captains have limited room to maneuver when approaching the Vineyard Haven terminal, Wayne Lamson, SSA general manager, said.
Mr. Lamson sent a letter to the New England district office of the Army Corps of Engineers to ask about the status of the mooring permits issued to Captain Douglas, owner of Coastwise.
It was the first step toward invoking a special condition in the Corps' mooring permit, issued on March 2, 1999, that allowed the schooners to reach just outside the 280-foot wide federal navigational channel, but it also contained a special condition under which the SSA could request that the moorings be relocated.
Mr. Lamson, SSA general manager, Vineyard SSA member Marc Hanover, and Tisbury Port Council representative George Balco were present at the Tuesday selectmen's meeting, when Steven Sayers, SSA general counsel, presented an overview of an agreement that took years to construct.
The selectmen and SSA officials credited selectman Geoghan Coogan, a lawyer who was elected in April and became involved in the issue at the request of the Douglas family, for finding a way to break the logjam.
No Douglas family members were present for the SSA presentation, which the selectmen took up out of order on the agenda so that Mr. Lamson and Mr. Sayers could catch an early ferry to return to the mainland.
"And I believe it's through his efforts that he started us talking again, to make certain we were not going down the path that no one desired us to go down, and that is the possible relocation of the Shenandoah out of Vineyard Haven Harbor," Mr. Sayers said of Mr. Coogan. "None of us wanted that result. But the SSA was not able to proceed with the status quo, because of its hazardous presence to our ships during those times."
The Shenandoah has been moored in the harbor for more than 44 years, and the Alabama for more than 32.
On April 18, 2008, the SSA notified the Army Corps of Engineers that the mooring for the Shenandoah interfered with the safe navigation of SSA ferries approaching and leaving the Vineyard Haven wharf. The SSA asked the Army Corps to modify the mooring permit.
Last December, Morgan Douglas, Captain Douglas's son and the general manager of the Black Dog Tall Ships, told the selectmen that complying with the SSA's request to move the mooring would require either relocating the ship out of the harbor altogether or displacing town moorings.
Mr. Douglas said the Shenandoah's mooring already had been moved 15 feet from the edge of the channel, and that he thought a move of 25 more feet and shortening the mooring chain 25 feet, for a net gain of 50 feet, could be done.
In a letter last November, the Army Corps notified the Douglas family that the Shenandoah's mooring permit might be suspended if they did not come up with a plan to adjust the current mooring or move it to increase the width of the channel the ferries use.
At a meeting in January, the selectmen urged all of the parties to work on a compromise, but the two sides remained at an impasse.
On Tuesday, Mr. Sayers said that after Mr. Coogan got involved, the SSA negotiated with the Douglases about the relocation and modification of the Shenandoah's mooring.
"We have reached an agreement I believe we all have signed off on, except literally to actually put signatures on the paper," Mr. Sayers said, "in which over the course of the next 45 days, once this agreement is signed, we will be looking at new drawings for the mooring of the Shenandoah, that the drawings will also depict the accurate location of the Alabama's mooring and its radius, and that ultimately the Shenandoah's radius will be moved 50 feet away from the navigational channel.
"And that is what the Steamship Authority here is willing to live with. We hope that will improve the situation sufficiently."
The SSA has agreed to contribute half of the cost of the mooring's relocation, up to an amount of $3,000, Mr. Sayers said.
"We received authorization from our board this morning, provided that all the parties sign on to the agreement within the next two weeks, because what we're getting out of this process is a speedy resolution which it otherwise might take years or months for the Army Corps to act on," Mr. Sayers said. "But we think that this will foreclose the possibility of the Shenandoah being required to pull out of Vineyard Haven Harbor."
Mr. Sayers suggested that the parties involved - including the town of Tisbury, Tisbury harbormaster Jay Wilbur, the SSA, and the Douglases - should make a joint request to the Army Corps for a modification of the current mooring permit for the Shenandoah and all of the other boats the Douglases have in the harbor.
"And under their regulations, we hope that that joint request will result in a voluntary modification of the Steamship regulations," Mr. Sayers said. The selectmen voted to accept the agreement.
The Shenandoah is a 108-foot square topsail schooner with an overall length of 150 feet. The Alabama is a 90-foot gaff rigged fore and aft schooner. The tall ships have come to define Vineyard Haven Harbor and are synonymous with Captain Douglas, owner of another Vineyard icon, the Black Dog Restaurant.
Captain Douglas is master of Shenandoah, and his son Morgan runs Alabama. Throughout the summer the sailing ships carry delighted passengers and groups, mostly Island school children on Shenandoah. When not in use and throughout the blustery winter months the schooners lay to moorings south of the ferry channel.
When Morgan Douglas arrived at the meeting Tuesday, at the time scheduled for the mooring discussion on the agenda, the selectmen gave him an opportunity to comment.
Mr. Douglas said the reason his company and the SSA came to the agreement was to avoid an unknown ending to the dispute. However, he added that his father continues to have serious reservations about how safe the Shenandoah will be in its new location with a shorter chain.
Mr. Douglas also said that he was frustrated by what he considered a lack of support from town leaders, who did not stand up for their residents and weigh in against the SSA's request to move the Shenandoah's mooring.
Mr. Douglas said that Mr. Wilbur did not reply to a letter from the Army Corps, dated January 22, 2009, requesting him to review and comment on the SSA's request for moving the Shenandoah's mooring.
Tristan Israel, chairman of the Tisbury selectmen, said that he did not know about the letter or why Mr. Wilbur did not write a reply. Taking exception to Mr. Douglas's comments, Mr. Israel said that the town did step in on the issue two years ago and has been very supportive of the two ships remaining in the harbor.
Mr. Wilbur, who did not respond to Mr. Douglas's comment Tuesday night, said in a phone call yesterday, "I asked the Army Corps of Engineers to send me that letter, in response to some of our players questioning whether in fact I had a role to play or not."
Mr. Wilbur said he did not reply to the letter because he was told by the Corps and the selectmen that he already had made his position clear about wanting to keep the Shenandoah moored in the harbor.
"The bottom line here is we all did the best we could, in my mind, and that's why I didn't respond to Morgan's criticism last night," Mr. Wilbur said. "It got resolved the way we all hoped it would. Why are we being critical of each other? It's crazy."
"We all care very much about this harbor and those boats," Mr. Wilbur added. "We all put in a lot of effort, and there they stay. I'm willing to say if I hadn't stood my ground, they very well may not have stayed there."
