A note from General Manager Alex Kryska

After a long day on the Woods Hole-Martha’s Vineyard route, I wanted to explain in more detail what happened to cause service disruptions on Saturday.

The M/V Island Home was taken out of service when staff learned that the vessel’s radiotelephony certificate, which is required for the vessel’s operation, had expired. At no point was there a mechanical or operational defect with the vessel, but until a valid certificate can be obtained from the Federal Communications Commission, the M/V Island Home will remain out of service The earliest we expect the vessel back is Tuesday, and we will give more detail on the return to service as it’s available.

On Saturday, we brought the M/V Martha’s Vineyard back into service from our Fairhaven Vessel Maintenance Facility to run for the M/V Island Home. That switch started with the scheduled 2:30 p.m. departure from Vineyard Haven. We also brought additional crew members in to run extra service on the M/V Barnstable to help “clean up” the backlog of customers waiting to travel.

We needed the help — in addition to the vehicles from the canceled 1:15 p.m. trip from Woods Hole, we were forced to leave behind, on average, 5 or 6 cars per trip of the M/V Martha’s Vineyard due to its smaller capacity. An added disruption came from an unrelated delay of the M/V Aquinnah due to a passenger who needed medical assistance at the Oak Bluffs Terminal. By the end of the day, we had to cancel a trip of the M/V Aquinnah because the crew was running out of time in their operating day to keep the vessel on the run, but our teams in Woods Hole and on the Vineyard did get everyone on a boat who needed to travel on Saturday.

So how did we find out about this radio certificate? Our marine and engineering staff discovered the lapse during a review of our vessels’ regulatory paperwork. That review was sparked by an incident earlier this month on the Hyannis-Nantucket route when the M/V Monomoy was taken out of operation on September 1 to conduct a mandatory U.S. Coast Guard inspection. The vessel’s quarterly inspection schedule had not been followed in accordance with the Authority’s established procedures, but the matter was resolved immediately upon the availability of the U.S. Coast Guard. Following the successful completion of the inspection, the M/V Monomoy returned to service on September 2. Also in that case, there was no mechanical or operational defect with the vessel that forced it out of service.

I’ll be frank: it’s unacceptable that two vessels in as many weeks have been sidelined by what are, essentially, paperwork issues. I’m angry about it, as are many of our staff members, but it’s also an opportunity for us to improve how we do business. As I mentioned, we’ve done a complete review of all regulatory deadlines on the vessels, and the radio certificate on the M/V Island Home was the only item discovered to also be out of compliance. We’re entering all these regulatory deadlines in a central database for tracking, and we will leverage our internal communications systems in a more efficient way to be sure multiple staff members are notified of their status well in advance of their expiration.

I know Saturday was a frustrating day for our customers, and it was for our staff, too. But we will learn and improve from these incidents and, ultimately, become a stronger organization.

Thanks to everyone for their patience Saturday, and thanks to our employees who worked hard, long hours to deal with a difficult situation.

-Alex Kryska, General Manager