With a crew shortage, what they say is poor communication, and a slew of ferry cancellations over the weekend, Steamship Authority representatives are renewing calls for improved management of the lifeline to the Island.
Steamship board and Port Council members want improved recruitment and retention of ferry staff to prevent cancellations that have become more frequent.
The problems started this weekend with the absence of one licensed deck officer. On Saturday, eight trips were canceled as a result, which then cascaded into eight more cancellations on Sunday as the ferry line tried to get back to its regular schedule. With backups on Saturday, crew members were forced to rest to meet U.S. Coast Guard regulations, prompting the issues on Sunday.
And the weekend wasn’t the end of the Steamship’s troubles. On Monday, the fast ferry Iyannough struck a barge on the Nantucket route, where it sustained minor damages, and the ferry Woods Hole had an engine problem on Tuesday.
This weekend is the second time this summer that many customers were impacted by cancellations during a busy weekend. A generator issue on the Island Home, one of the largest ferries in the Steamship’s fleet, impacted around 76 vehicle reservations in a previous July weekend.
It also wasn’t the first time that one crew member calling out sick led to serious issues. The day before the end of February break, 150 vehicle reservations were impacted by cancellations when one staff member called out.
And over the year, the Vineyard route has seen a spike in cancellations related to crewing issues. According to trip reports presented during Steamship Authority board and Port Council meetings, there were a total of 55 ferry cancellations on the Vineyard route in 2023. This year, between January and June, there have been a total of 84 crew-related cancellations, 60 of them occurring in June alone. Sean Driscoll, Steamship Authority communications director, said the jump in June cancellations was due to the reduced number of freight ferry trips for this summer approved by the board, which stemmed from a lack of crew members.
The frustration has boiled over for residents and visitors, some of whom have had to wait until the following day to drive aboard a ferry, while others opted to find alternative travel arrangements.
Steamship Authority officials who spoke with The Times weren’t pleased with the recent weekend.
“I am very unhappy about the events that transpired over the two summer weekends,” Jim Malkin, who represents Martha’s Vineyard on the Steamship Authority board, said.
Peter Jeffrey, the Falmouth representative to the Steamship board, was a little harsher. He said the latest weekend cancellations were a “disaster.” “I think it was a culmination of overall management’s failure to recruit and retain proper staffing levels,” Jeffrey said.
The Steamship representatives broadly felt there was a need to revamp the ferry line’s recruitment and staff retention efforts.
“We need to make the Steamship Authority a place people want to come in and grow in their careers,” Malkin said. “Plans are nice, but execution actually gets things done.”
Jeffrey said the ferry line’s management needs to plan “multiple seasons into the future.” He said while there are factors that make recruitment difficult, like housing, the ferry line also needs to analyze what makes it a more — or less — attractive employer than others. He also suggested changing work hours to potentially help recruitment. Under the current shift, crew members work 18 hours in a 24-hour period. Jeffrey supported a 12-hour model, which is the maritime industry standard. The union representing licensed deck officers, Teamsters Local 59, has also pushed for the change in hours during contract negotiations.
Oak Bluffs representative to the Port Council Joe Sollitto said while there have been recruitment efforts — Steamship Authority COO Mark Higgins has traveled across the country to attract maritime students in states like California — a new approach may be needed to try incentivizing candidates to work for the ferry line. A possible option, Sollitto said, could be funding a maritime student’s education in exchange for a certain number of years of employment, similar to military service academies.
Additionally, Sollitto underscored the need to recruit new staff and promote from within the organization; older workers are retiring or are considering retiring in the near future.
The Steamship officials also said “communication breakdowns,” as Jeffrey put it, with passengers exacerbated the tough weekend. Although the ferry line has a text and email notification system, it doesn’t always work.
Ebba Hierta, an Edgartown resident, experienced firsthand some of the frustration from the weekend. She was able to get off the Vineyard in a timely fashion on Sunday — which she attributed to “the degree that the frontline Steamship workers bent over backwards” — to reach her early morning medical appointment on Monday. However, she only knew her 6:15 pm reservation on Sunday from Oak Bluffs was canceled because she was “obsessively” checking the schedule. Despite being subscribed to the text and email alerts, she did not receive the updates.
Sollito said he’s previously suggested having signs on the highway toward Woods Hole and at the terminals, similar to airports, to let people know about delays and cancellations. He also said utilizing a radio station to notify drivers was another possibility.
“They react to problems, they don’t anticipate problems,” Sollito said of the ferry line.
Additionally, the Steamship Authority has been relying on outdated technology to operate its reservation system. While a long-delayed website is expected to debut this fall, the request for proposals for the reservation system isn’t expected to be issued by the Steamship Authority until the end of the year. The tech overhaul could take two years to complete.
Another option, Jeffrey said, is that they could reduce the number of trips to the Island. He said there were some problems running the existing schedule with current staffing levels and a reliance on overtime. “It’s just too fragile,” he said. “It’s more aspirational than realistic.”
Jeffrey was open about where he thought accountability on the recent weekend of cancellations should be held: the general manager, Robert Davis. “What the board really needs to do is exercise our fiduciary duties and hold the general manager accountable,” he said.
During the Steamship Authority board’s monthly meeting in July, the members discussed the ferry line’s contract with Davis in executive session. While he wouldn’t disclose any details, Jeffrey said he was not in favor of renewing Davis’ contract.
He said the general manger was accountable for both the successes and failures of the Steamship Authority. And if the board doesn’t hold him accountable, he said, eventually the traveling public may do so by turning to the state legislature instead for change.
Sollito said although the Vineyard representatives try to put up a “united front” to serve the Island, substantive change is difficult to implement. He said Martha’s Vineyard has only 35 percent of the vote on the board, which means either Nantucket needs to join the effort or members from two other municipalities need to approve a measure. The Port Council acts as an advisory body for the board.
Malkin echoed a need for changes to the Steamship Authority.
“As the board member from Martha’s Vineyard, I am not comfortable or satisfied with the status quo,” Malkin said.
Although the Steamship officials had gripes with the ferry line’s management, they commended the workers who were on the vessels and terminals.
“I know the poor people working down there are getting the brunt of it,” Sollitto said regarding customer’s frustrations when ferry schedules go awry.
Nantucket board representative Robert Ranney could not be reached.
As I write this I’m learning that another 8 boats today, 8/15, have been canceled and more of the OB run is diverted to VH. The Vineyard rep on the SSA Board of Governors has been voicing concerns about these issues for years. He was the first (and apparently only) rep to raise the issue of potential crew shortages as competition from the offshore wind industry grows. That was years ago. SSA leadership basically blew off his concerns and here we are today. And sadly, our rep has had very little support from other board members. It’s good to see Falmouth stepping up to the plate. I’d like to see the entire island stepping up to the plate to make sure our voices are heard and our representative knows we’re behind him. County Commission and Selectboards, let’s hear from you. MV Times, how about an editorial?
How many former SSA crew are employed in the wind industry?
Davis has to go before anything improves. He’s been a disaster from day one and it gotten worse every day since! It’s a joke! Fire him and hire someone competent!
At what point will we start demanding retribution for the loss to our short, fragile economy? Two weekends of business in a seasonal location is a massive loss when we have only 12 weeks to sustain our businesses for the entire year, and this in addition to our paying ever-rising fees simply to get to a doctors appointment or transport our groceries. The SSA is no longer ‘the lifeline to the islands’ they claim to be. When even emergency services won’t be able to transport an ambulatory patient as needed they are putting our lives at risk, as well as directly impacting our livelihoods.
When you demand that the SSA be disbanded?
Emergency services do not need the SSA to transport an ambulatory patient.
There is no shortage of people willing to provide the Island with transportation services, for a price.
I think I have an idea
I don’t know how much clearer it needs to be that both the current SSA governance model, the board of five municipal representatives, and its General Manager, Robert Davis, are broken. The current arrangements are now over 20-years old, when New Bedford, after intense lobbying in Boston, was added to the Board of Governors and given 10% of the vote. New Bedford, however, effectively has no skin in the game at the moment since there is no SSA service to New Bedford, and as a result its representative on the board barely participates in the monthly governance meetings. Rightfully, MV and Nantucket have the majority vote on the board, 70% if they vote together. However, there is a major rift between the Islands when it comes to evaluating the SSA’s increasingly controversial general manager who is seen as a major impediment by the Vineyard and Falmouth to very necessary SSA changes. Nantucket and Barnstable seem to be very content with the SSA as it relates to them. The Vineyard and Falmouth are not at all content as all the recent cancellations and other ongoing operational problems cause extreme frustration and anger among those dependent on the ferry service. In order to effect management change a majority of the board >50% of the vote is necessary. With the current equal split, 45% to 45%, it would require New Bedford’s 10% to break the tie in favor of making changes. Evidently that’s not in the cards, which leaves us with a status quo. The solution is therefore for the legislature to amend the SSA enabling legislation, which frightens everyone because the legislative process is neither easily controlled nor will it necessarily result in an overall or desirable improvement. One obvious solution is for the legislature to create two separate ferry services: one for the Vineyard and one for Nantucket each with its own governing board. Creating that arrangement would be neither simple or easy. But once created it would far neater than what we have now.
New Bedford has skin in the game.
They are one of the Island’s three mainland ports.
The current ferries from New Bedford use the the Island’s SSA docks.
New Bedford should have no say?
You want the State to take control of the SSA?
Have it run out of Boston.
And Davis got another big pay increase last year…. How? Why? Failure pays!
Who approved the pay raise?
Who appointed the Board of Governors?
Who voted for the County Commissioners?
Look in the mirror.
Are day trippers coming any more? Doubt that civil claim would hold up. If you plan to making a living off the “season economy” there are left tail risks and that includes transportation failure. Pretty sure if the boat isn’t running and someone needs a medical emergency a helicopter would be used.
18hrs on 6 hrs off every 24 is a long shift/watch.
Not only are you working 18 out of 24, but you’re not being paid for the 6 hours, even though you’re on call for emergencies ( snapped lines, cables etc. Change the work schedule and abide by the federal 12 hour rule. Otherwise employees and potential employees will keep walking away from the SSA.
As it was clearly said, maybe there are too many boats running,. This to me includes freight boats.
As we all have been struggling with the crowded roads, restaurants and sidewalks this summer, we should learn to voice our minds and get to a sustainable island economy. Also it is little known that restaurant, clothing stores, and hotels pay tax to the state and federal government. The property tax is what pays our town government and what little is requested from agencies in the state and federal government. YES the money spent in town after paying employees, rent and materials, goes off to the state and gets spread to other areas of the state and the federal monies go off to fund government agencies and projects.
So the question is, do we need the BS tourism at this uncontrolled amount so we can suffer, or can we have pleasant summer experiences with fewer people along with sustainable enjoyment, development, and the maintainence of our infrastructure etc.
Slow down the insane boat loads of vehicles, set realistic schedules and times for people to work. I personally know i couldn’t work 18 hrs a day even in my prime.
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