Updated August 19
The Steamship Authority board voted Tuesday to accept a 2021 operating schedule that includes 5:30 am freight boat runs many Woods Hole residents have long characterized as a nightmare in their community.
In a 4-1 combination vote, the board accepted a report on proposed Vineyard operating schedules that was generated following a petition from Woods Hole residents, and adopted the schedules. Falmouth representative Kathryn Wilson was the dissenting vote. The schedules largely mirror 2020 operating schedules, especially in regard to the 5:30 am freight boat, which for 2021 will operate daily from Memorial Day to mid-October.
The vote rejects concerns 58 Falmouth petitioners put forth with signatures and testimony regarding noise generated by trucks that transit Woods Hole Road to get to the early boat.
In a statement to the board, general manager Robert Davis said he and his staff recommended maintaining the operating schedules (including the early ferry) as they were presented in the spring before petitioners weighed in.
“There should be no mistake in anyone’s mind that the SSA’s paramount interest is to ensure that the Islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket are provided with adequate transportation of persons and necessities of life on a year-round basis,” he said. “The islands’ economies are, and will continue to be, strongly affected by transportation services to and from the mainland, whether it’s paid for entirely through passenger, freight, or automobile fares, or through a combination thereof. Either inadequate service or unnecessarilily expensive service will jeopardize their future.”
Davis went on to say, “The interest of the Islands is paramount, and must be the overriding consideration in evaluating the SSA’s proposed operating schedule.”
He acknowledged the positions on the Long-Range Vineyard Transportation Task Force, which could help identify “reasonable steps” to address traffic concerns, have only recently been filled, due to delays caused by the pandemic.
Wilson criticized the “tone” she said some Vineyard selectmen took in letters of comment on the early freight boat issue.
“For example,” she said, “one of them said, ‘Just nine months ago a public hearing was held on this same topic,’ as if it still is not a bothersome issue.”
Wilson did not name the selectman behind the comment.
She went on to say, “The Oak Bluffs selectmen referred to ‘yet another request’ and characterized the effort to review this schedule as ‘mean-spirited’ and an ‘abuse of the public process.’”
Wilson said the comments aren’t helpful to the process. She asked Vineyard selectmen to take concerns from the other side of the sound “seriously,” because “we’re not just making it up.”
Wilson said the report indicates “there has been no material change in the relevant circumstances.” She countered that “there’s also no change in how we evaluate these questions. The underlying reason for the complaints remain the same.”
Wilson closed her comments by saying there has been no relief offered to area residents. “So we’re asking Falmouth, Woods Hole residents to suck it up again,” she said.
Barnstable representative Robert Jones said, “It’s an unfortunate thing and if there’s any way we can mitigate it, and this [task force] comes up with some solution, let’s go about it. But I think there’s a certain amount of acceptance you have to have when you live next to a main highway, a state road …”
Jones added that he thought the Falmouth Police should be “all over” any trucks that violate noise or speed regulations en route to the early ferry.
Headway on ISM code
During reviews of shipyard work for two ferries, the board was told Mark Amundsen, director of marine operations, has begun investments in preventive maintenance. While these are costly, Amundsen said, he expects the work to pay dividends later in the form of greater safety and lower upkeep costs.
Of $350,255 in change orders requested for the Katama, presently dry-docked at Thames Shipyard in Connecticut, Amudsen said $154,000 was to blast and coat areas of the hull.
Older vessels like the Katama, he said, approach their “effective diminution, or steel corrosion limits,” and the coating work is meant as a hedge against having to replace steel.
Hull coatings and deeper work on equipment like generators, he said, has been executed with an eye toward a International Safety Management (ISM) code and a Safety/Quality Management System (SQMS) audit in 2021.
The HMS report, a deep analysis of the SSA generated in the wake of the trouble-plagued 2018 season, “strongly recommended” the ferry line adopt ISM code to guide the creation of a Safety Management System (SMS).
“The International Safety Management (ISM) Code is an international standard for the safe operation of ships and for pollution prevention,” the report states. “It provides a framework for any maritime organization to develop an effective safety management system (SMS).”
Implementation of SMS, a type of process-based management considered an antidote for a longstanding reactive culture in areas like vessel maintenance, was described in the HMS report as having “a very high impact, perhaps the highest of the recommendations, on SSA operations.”
The SSA began SMS implementation in September 2019.
Board chair Jim Malkin asked if blast and coat work for the Katama should have been anticipated ahead of time.
Amundsen said the need to do so wasn’t evident until the vessel was in dry dock, and could be examined. At that point it became a preventive maintenance issue, one he expects in other vessels too. “I think you’ll see more cost in coatings going forward, because you either replace steel or you do coatings,” Amundsen said.
The board took no vote on the change orders Amundsen outlined.
The board went on to unanimously award a $1.9 million overhaul of the MV Eagle to Thames Shipyard, which outbid Senesco Marine of Rhode Island for the job by $268,480.
Davis said the vessel would be out from Oct. 21 to Dec. 22, and costs for the work exceeded what was budgeted. Starting with hull blasting and coating, which jumped from a budgeted amount of $92,000 to just shy of $235,000, he enumerated a number of cost overruns.
“The blasting of the topside and superstructure was budgeted at $155,000. It came in at just over $355,000,” he said. “Allowance for a structural steel renewal was originally budgeted for $55,000. It came in at $207,000. The freight deck door overhauls were budgeted for $90,000. They’re coming in at $168,000. And then generator overhauls were for $30,000 — they’re $205,000. We’re going to overhaul all three emergency generators on that vessel.”
Malkin asked why the budgeted numbers departed from the bid prices, “in some cases by significant percentages.”
Amundsen said the numbers reflect transition to ISM standards, and that translates into a higher degree of safety. Ultimately, he said, he expects such expenditures to generate cost savings.
“I know there is a considerable amount of difference from the budget,” he said, “not only in this but in the other vessels, but I believe what you’ll see in the long term is lower pricing as a result.”
After a bit more discourse, Malkin said he agreed with Amundsen’s perspective.
In other business, Oak Bluffs Port Council member Robert Huss told the board mask compliance, in some cases, has proved problematic. People will put their masks on when being watched, he said, but when they’re no longer being observed, they remove them. “There’s not much we can do about that other than keep asking,” he said.
Davis agreed. Despite PA system announcements on mask usage and signage on the vessels and in the terminals, “it continues to be a challenge,” he said.
New Bedford representative Moira Tierney suggested banning mask scalawags from the ferry line. A skeptical-sounding Davis, who noted the SSA was a public transit agency, said he would ask general counsel Terence Kenneally to look into that possibility. He went on to say state police officers who regularly travel on SSA ferries will intervene in mask-related issues if called upon to do so.
Updated to include more information from Tuesday’s meeting and to correct what action the board took on vessel work.