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.
