Island Home wows press contingent with her size and splendor

By Pat Waring - March 1, 2007

The Island Home charmed local media representatives and other guests Monday morning, showing off her bright spaciousness and well-considered amenities, which promise to make the Vineyard Haven to Woods Hole crossing a pleasant adventure. Steamship officials greeted about two-dozen media day visitors

The sleek and speedy $32.1 million, 255-foot, 6,000-horsepower vessel is scheduled to replace the veteran workhorse Islander on Monday, March 5. After a farewell ceremony beginning at 11 am at the Vineyard Haven Steamship terminal, the 57-year-old Islander will depart at noon for her final crossing to Woods Hole. Instead of heading back, Islander will stay at the dock, we imagine watching wistfully, as the Island Home leaves at 1:15 pm on her first official trip carrying passengers to the Vineyard. Islanders will get their first inside look at the new steamship this Saturday, at a commissioning ceremony in Vineyard Haven beginning at 11:30 am, and a public open house from noon until 2 pm. There is a second open house in Woods Hole on Sunday, 2 to 4 pm.

Senior captain Ed Jackson, project manager for the Island Home who had overseen her building from start to finish smiled broadly and accepted congratulations. Wayne Lamson, SSA general manger, recalled the long process that began more than 10 years ago with planning for a new ship. He listed statistics showing the ship's superiority to her predecessor in many areas, stressing her speed, safety, and passenger conveniences. Carl Walker, director of engineering and maintenance, delivered an informative power point presentation about construction of the boat at VT Halter Marine shipyard in Moss Point, Mississippi, which was flooded by Hurricane Katrina, pushing completion of Island Home back nine months. The audience gasped while watching a video of the vessel splashing into the water at her July 21, 2006 launch. Everyone from the new ferry's captain, Sean O'Connor, to Gina Barboza, manager of reservations and community relations, exuded confidence and heady excitement.

Island Home will carry 60 cars on her freight deck and another 16 on two hydraulic lift decks, while the Islander had only 48 spaces, and with a length of 255 feet versus 200, Island Home surpasses the ship she will replace in many ways. The large amount of aluminum used in construction make Island Home lighter than she looks. Islander's maximum speed is 11 knots, and she takes 45 minutes to cross the sound. Island Home can sprint across in about 30 minutes at 16 knots.

"There would be no problem making the trip in under 30 minutes if you needed to," Mr. Lamson said.

Double-ended Island Home has one propeller forward and another aft, along with thrusters at each end. An anchor may be deployed from the bow, or Woods Hole end.

Comforts and amenities

Frequent travelers on Islander, accustomed to feeling a little cramped here, a little jostled there, too hot, too cold, annoyed at not being able to find anywhere to sit, having to read the newspaper in dim lighting or push into a tiny rest room, will be awed, if disoriented, by Island Home. Everything is bigger. Doors, stairs, aisles between seats and spaces between cars are wider. Windows are tall, broad, providing a flood of natural light and panoramic views of harbor, sound, and sky. With 625 interior seats and another 422 outside, passengers should seldom be forced to stand.

Spaces everywhere are generous, ceilings high, with interior decoration by Directions in Design, a St. Louis company. A quiet cell-phone-free area includes a study space - two long writing counters with straight-backed chairs and desk lamps, - "for Falmouth Academy students," said Capt. O'Connor.

Despite the attractiveness and variety, there is nothing to equal those long, soft, green benches on Islander. Many a Vineyarder has fond memories of spending a late trip home trip snoozing, stretched out on a bench, head resting on a backpack or wadded up jacket.

The food service area is all gleaming metal, and welcoming. And although the menu produced by Boston Culinary Group will be exactly the same as on the other ferries, the setting may make it taste a bit more like gourmet fare. Island Home diners may choose high stools at small round tables or benches at long tables. Still, some will miss morning coffee and conversation at those odd, round stand-up tables in the center of the Islander lunch room.

Walls are bright off-white and ceilings shiny aluminum, and lighting is abundant. The walls boast historic displays created by the Martha's Vineyard Museum, in response to the inspiration of the late Kathryn "Cassie" Roessel, to whose memory the vessel is dedicated and who suggested the new ferry's name. Ms. Roessel was the Vineyard member of the SSA at the time of her death two years ago. Along with 16 wood-framed reproductions of photos of Vineyard scenes from days gone by, including shots of the original SSA vessel Island Home there are six larger panels inscribed with text, drawings, and photographs. These will be the basis for a quest, an educational scavenger hunt to be created by the museum to encourage visitors to learn more about their island destination.

Comfort and safety features range from new evacuation equipment, ubiquitous life preservers and airplane-style slides leading to linked life rafts, which Mr. Lamson said would make it possible to empty the ship filled with 1,200 passengers in 30 minutes, to two elevators making the ship fully accessible to the wheelchair bound and those unable to climb stairs. In case the breezes off the water are not cooling enough, the entire ship will be air-conditioned in summer, and there is wireless computer access throughout.

After years of squeezing into dingy, narrow stalls and jockeying for space at two small sinks, rest room patrons will rejoice. The long walk-in ladies' room is equipped with eight roomy stalls, two of them wheelchair accessible, and a wall of sinks with handily placed soap, towels, and trash holders. There is plenty of room to walk and stash belongings, and a fold-down baby changing table and toddler seat.

Captain O'Connor led one group on a tour of the ship from bottom to top, including a look at areas usually off-limits to non-employees - the crew's quarters with spare bunk rooms, the roaring engine room with its massive motors, the control areas, past tanks for fuel and water. The captain said that although the ship carries a payload 50 percent more than the Islander she is very efficient, burning only a little more fuel.

On the freight deck, the captain demonstrated the powerful doors that slide open nearly noiselessly, and close so tightly that sea water does not splash in during rough weather. One lift deck was stowed aloft, the other deployed with one end tilted down at a gentle angle. Drivers will drive up onto the decks and be able to walk out of their vehicles and directly into the passenger deck seating area.

High atop both ends of the vessel, the bridges whose shape and height largely give the Island Home her distinctive and massive appearance, include a console with dials, monitors, and controls stretching nearly the length of the long, windowed space with its panoramic view of the water, a big compass and shiny wheel front and center.

Mr. Lamson said that despite the big vessel's larger capacity and greater speed, there is no plan to reduce the number of scheduled trips. However, since Island Home will be berthed overnight in Woods Hole, unlike Islander, which spends nights in Vineyard Haven, beginning with the March 28 spring schedule change, she will make a new early morning trip at 6 am, and be ready for the regular 7 am trip from the Vineyard. However, a late night 10:45 pm weekend crossing, which has been the mainstay of many a late-arriving, homeward bound Vineyarder, will be eliminated, he said.

The elderly Islander, once removed from service, will be declared surplus equipment and put up for sale. If no potential buyer is smitten by her quirky charms, the boatline will make a new plan.