Update Aug. 19
The Steamship Authority’s online reservation system went down Sunday at roughly 1:30 am.
“That left most users unable to book a reservation until about 2 pm,” SSA spokesman Sean Driscoll said. The glitch that triggered the system failure was set in motion just before midnight Saturday, when a reservation did not finish processing by the time the system went into nightly backup mode. When the system went back online at 1:30 am Sunday, Driscoll said, the unfinished reservation created a repetitious error that ate up processing for all other reservations.
Meanwhile, the SSA Vineyard Haven terminal became packed with hundreds of passengers Sunday after ferries were diverted from Oak Bluffs due to foul weather conditions. The Island Queen, a private ferry that travels between Falmouth and Oak Bluffs, canceled Sunday, according to Driscoll, which may have added to the number of people waiting for passage in Vineyard Haven.
“Weather conditions have worsened, and it’s unsafe to get in [and] out of Oak Bluffs. Tickets will be accepted by Steamship Authority,” the Island Queen wrote in a tweet. “Bus shuttles, in limited number, available from Oak Bluffs to Vineyard Haven and Woods Hole to [Island Queen] parking.”
Queues of passengers could be seen Sunday afternoon in the rain, with minimal to nonexistent social distancing, at the Vineyard Haven terminal. However, mask use appeared widespread.
When asked at a monthly board meeting Tuesday if there were protocols to manage the general health and safety of so many people at a terminal, Davis credited ferry captains with mitigation efforts, but while lauding their work overall, did not highlight anything specifically done by terminal staff.
“That was a unique situation,” he said. Travelers exiting the Vineyard early due to the weather and Oak Bluffs cancellations due to the weather compounded by an influx of Island Queen and SeaStreak passengers contributed to the volume of people in Vineyard Haven, he said.
“I want to say I think our terminal people, under the circumstances, did a great job,” he said. “Vessel crews also did a great job. We have instituted protocols in terms of how many passengers [are] onboard the vessels because of the social distancing. The captains looked at that and made the determination as to whether they could exceed those in some of the cases to try to get the people off.”
Davis went on to say, “Had this not been a COVID year, all of those people probably would have just gotten on the Island Home and been on their way. But it ended up [by] having to be spread out over four or five trips.”
Davis said he was “grateful” people were wearing masks, based on what he’d seen.
Asked if the reservation problem contributed to jamming up the terminal with people, Davis said, “It had nothing to do with that.”
He described the terminal on Sunday as a passenger situation, as opposed to a vehicle situation, which stemmed from the reservation problem.
Updated with more photos and more information from the SSA. –Ed.