
Four days after a weekend of transportation issues described by Steamship Authority representatives as a “disaster,” another crew shortage was ailing the ferry line on Thursday, August 15.
“Due to two unexpected crewing issues requiring a reassignment of personnel, the MV Woods Hole will not run starting with its 12:20 pm trip from Woods Hole today,” an online notice from the Steamship Authority read. “Any customers with vehicle reservations on the affected trips should report to the terminal to be lined up for priority standby travel.”
A total of eight trips were canceled due to the crew shortage.
“We had a licensed deck officer call out on the MV Woods Hole and MV Martha’s Vineyard, so we opted to move personnel from MV Woods Hole to keep MV Martha’s Vineyard running,” Sean Driscoll, the Steamship Authority communications director, said.
Driscoll said he did not have the number of vehicle reservations for the eight canceled trips.
A crew shortage on Saturday, and the spillover effects into Sunday, had canceled 16 trips on the Vineyard route over the weekend.
Driscoll said several things are being done to avoid a repeat of the past weekend, including having the freight ferry Sankaty towed out of Woods Hole to make sure there are two operating slips in case of further crewing cancellations. He said the freight ferry had to be towed to Fairhaven, because the Steamship Authority did not have the manpower currently to move it.
Business are suffering thanks to all this cancelations maybe it need a change on LEADERSHIP
Do you think that people will come again after all those cancellations THE STEAMSHIP AUTHORITIES IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED ANYMORE.
There are employees and business that need those ferry to come in with people. NOW PEOPLE AND EMPLOYEES WILL NOT COME BACK TO MV
We have too many people.
For sure-
Do they have any new people training?
This cannot keep going on.
Businesses, the hospital and many other Island people need to get their people back and forth, never mind the tourists who may even have connections on the other side. We live on this Island, but dealing with reservations being cancelled is very disappointing.
My mother was born and brought up here, and now I have permanently moved here 2 years ago.
Never thought I would see these problems during my retirement and dealing with medical appointments on the other side that I can’t get here.
The Island has become very popular.
Did you think that would not bring change.
How did people manage medical appointments prior to the SSA?
Do you want to go back to that?
Make The Island Great Again.
We have spent summers here for many years and now that we have retired come year round. With the Authority the lifeline of the Islands, this is abominable especially in the height of the tourist season. People will not return here in years to come when they have spent 6 hours or more after spending hours to get reservations for their vacations. Why does the Authority not adequately address these issues? It is time that Islanders and Mainlanders alike insist on basic service.
We all know the challenges.
The only solution I have seen is “You’re Fired”
Mainlanders have no issues, the SSA is an in convince, at best.
“People will not return here in years to come” We have enough people.
Albert, and who gets to choose who comes?
Albert, you’re right. “You’re fired!” is not a solution.
Doesn’t work for Trump’s scripted tv show and it doesn’t work in real life.
Bring back 7 day standby. If the long island ferry can do it so can the Steamship. We can do this.
This is on Spike Lee and the knee jerk reaction the Steamship had over 20 years ago from a huge weekend gathering Spike promoted, which caused the Steamship to freak out over the weekend surge in the standby lines.
Those of us on island that summer remember that fun weekend well and we all got over the extra effort the steamship made to accommodate Spikes guests filling up the boats, but the Steamship didn’t and has been punishing the Island ever since.
This is Spikes fault? Seriously?
This is a real quandary. Businesses, travel plans, affected and the problem is not easily solved. Simultaneously the need to slow down our global economic growth due to climate is creating a tug in the opposite direction with calls for reduction of services. The Wampanoag trive did a study of our impact from vehicle emissons and the trend since that study in 2018 is only rapidly increasing. Our impact on clmate from vehicles alone could be at 1 million pounds of Co2 if it has not reacnned it already. Globally, there is a call to scale down our economies but this is very difficult and is it even possible? Our island is changing and no ice forms in our ponds – or even in most of Vermont as well. Would the island benefit from a slow down, or would it be impossible? Currently we do have an un-intended very damaging transportation problem. It is up to our leaders to find a solution.
A small thing, but why does the SSA feel the need to advertise incessantly (for instance, on Cape radio stations) IN the already-overcrowded tourist season? This isn’t 1991 or the 2007/8/9 Great Recession.
My family has been visiting for a week for their annual August vacation and were due to leave the Vineyard today on August 20th on the Woods Hole. Because of all of the recent cancellations on the Woods Hole they changed their reservation to go on the 2:30 Island Home today. Big mistake. The Woods Hole ran and the Island Home was cancelled due to mechanical issues, yet again. When they got to Vineyard Haven to see if they could get in standby that was impossible due to the backup. They had two cats and two little boys in the car. Anyone that they tried to talk to in the VH ticket office was either “useless, indifferent or rude” according to them. The terminal manager refused to come out of the office to speak with anyone. There was no one who even tried to advise them on what they could do. They went back to West Tisbury and are staying another night because I told them to check for online reservation openings. They caught a ferry time for tomorrow morning. BUT will the boat actually run? It’s becoming a roll of the dice these days. One of them will miss work tomorrow and miss conference calls with people who have waited for him to return from vacation. So, in trying to avoid being part of another Woods Hole freight boat cancellation they ended up worse off. It would have been better if the Vineyard Haven staff tried to be helpful, acted like they cared, and weren’t blatantly rude and indifferent. Not a great way to end a summer vacation. Enough of these cancellations, SSA.
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