An electrical failure was blamed for Monday’s collision between the freight ferry Governor and the new passenger vessel Island Home in the Woods Hole slips.

Carl Walker, director of maintenance and engineering for the Steamship Authority, said a circuit board blew, causing the Governor to lose its bow motor and steerage.

The Governor had just left on her 7:30 a.m. run to the Vineyard, the first trip of the day, when the problem was noticed. The boat turned back, but while attempting to dock the freight ferry clipped the bow of the Island Home, which was loading passengers and fuel prior to a run to the Island.

The captain of the freight boat warned of the approaching crash with a long blast on the boat’s whistle, giving dock staff enough time to shut off the flow of fuel into the Island Home before impact.

Passengers and crew aboard both vessels were shaken but not injured.

The accident interrupted the boat line schedule and caused traffic delays for much of Monday. Coast Guard inspectors checked the Island Home and cleared her to leave at 9:30 a.m., an hour and fifteen minutes later than scheduled. The Governor was out of service for the rest of the day and was replaced by another freight boat, the Katama.

The Governor suffered no structural damage in the collision; on the Island Home a section of the rub rail, the equivalent of a car’s bumper, was damaged.

While the damage to the new $32 million Island Home was minor, SSA general manager Wayne Lamson confessed to feeling a little like a driver finding the first dent in his new car.

But it could have been worse.

“The fuel was shut off before impact. So there was no oil spill, no need to go to a shipyard to repair damage,” Mr. Lamson said.

Mr. Walker said the rub rail on the Island Home would not be repaired for probably two years, at the time of the new boat’s scheduled drydocking.

And the fault which caused the collision was easily repaired.

“A circuit board in one of the propulsion drives was bad,” Mr. Walker said. “We had one flown in from Atlanta on Monday night and we got it in and the boat was operational by Tuesday morning at six.

“What the Governor lost [before the collision] was the bow motor. Only the stern motor was operational when they tried to make the dock at Woods Hole,” he said, adding:

“There was no problem with either of the rudders at either end of the boat. I think when they said they were having steerage problems, it was the fact the boat simply wasn’t going fast enough, and when you’re not going fast enough, the rudder doesn’t do anything.”

He denied suggestions the problem had first been noticed the day before the accident.