To the Editor:
I would like to address some insinuations reported in the media, regarding the perception that the Steamship Authority concealed or withheld the results of the investigation into the July 27, 2023, incident involving the MV Sankaty from the authority board, the Port Council, and the public.
Let me be perfectly clear: Those claims could not be further from the truth. In fact, the Steamship Authority has released more than four hours of video and hundreds of pages of investigatory documents to several media outlets upon request, including The Martha’s Vineyard Times, and addressed the results of the investigation and the corrective action in detail at multiple public meetings.
At the Steamship Authority, we are committed to transparency, yet we also have a responsibility to maintain employee confidentiality. Confidential reporting of potential issues, hazards, and incidents is the foundation of our safety quality management system (SQMS). Without the ability of our employees to report incidents in a confidential manner, the SQMS will fail. We believed that the foundation of the system would have been greatly compromised through the public release of unredacted employee statements regarding this incident, which is why they were initially withheld from the media.
As a result of a thorough investigation, the root cause of the untethering of the MV Sankaty has been identified. The root cause remains the same as previously reported, namely the failure of the crew to properly secure the vessel in accordance with existing operating procedures. Corrective training measures have been implemented in the authority’s learning management system to prevent this type of isolated incident from happening again.
As always, I welcome the opportunity to have a constructive dialogue with the public on all matters related to the authority’s operations.
Robert B. Davis, general manager
Woods Hole, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Steamship Authority