Last week’s ill-timed crash of the Steamship Authority’s online reservation system on the first day of 2018 bookings for off-Island customers did not result in a loss of business for the boat line.

The system was down from late Wednesday until after 4:30 p.m. Thursday. “We nevertheless ended up with similar sales for that day compared to a year ago,” general manager Robert Davis told governors regular monthly meeting in Falmouth Tuesday morning.

“Regardless, we inconvenienced our customers and for that we apologize. We’ll be looking into what changes we can make to avoid similar occurrences in the future,” Mr. Davis said of the crash.

Director of maintenance and engineering Carl R. Walker reported that with a month to go before the Martha’s Vineyard is slated to leave a Rhode Island shipyard, the 25-year-old ferry remains far from finished with its refurbishment.

“We are very tight on the schedule,”Mr. Walker told governors.

Already more than two weeks behind the vessel’s original Feb. 1 completion date — 14 days of unanticipated steel work and two days of weather delay — Senesco Marine of North Kingstown, R.I. has now made two additional delay claims, for weather and drydocking, which Mr. Walker said he would negotiate with the shipyard Wednesday.

The Martha’s Vineyard is scheduled to return to service on the Woods Hole run March 3, but Mr. Walker showed slides illustrating a litany of tasks he said were 25 per cent or more away from completion. Dropcloths covered much of the snack bar and other areas, coils of wire hung from overhead and decking remained uninstalled.

“The passenger cabins are only 40 per cent at this point,” he said.

However, the ferry is out of drydock with much of the exterior work completed: “All the windows are in and she’s floating,” Mr. Walker said. And to help keep the Martha’s Vineyard on schedule, he added, SSSA machinists are reporting to North Kingstown to attend to the vessel’s main engine.

“We have some things we need to get done” in order to make it back by March 3, Mr. Walker said.

The refit at Senesco is intended to give the Martha’s Vineyard another quarter-century on the Woods Hole route, Mr. Davis told the board.

“This is to refresh it and to make sure it’s capable of providing another 25 years of service with the amenities the public is looking for,” which include more electrical connections where passengers can charge their mobile devices, he added.

In a sign of politically contentious times, television screens aboard the boat line fleet and in its ticket offices will no longer broadcast national news programming to their captive audiences. Updated guidelines from boat line management, “for the purpose of keeping the authority away from politics,” were approved unanimously by the advisory port council earlier this month.

Under the new guidelines, TV screens aboard vessels and in ticket offices should be tuned in the following order:

• NECN in the ticket offices during local news broadcasts and local news on other channels (Channels, 4, 5, 7 and 10) on the ferries.

• Local sports, such as New England Patriots and Boston Red Sox games;

• National sports, such as ESPN broadcasts or nationally televised NFL games;

• The Weather Channel, the Food Channel or the Discovery Channel.

The new television policy replaces guidance issued in 2013 by port Capt. Charles G. Gifford, according to a summary from authority general counsel Steven M. Sayers. In response to complaints about what channels were shown in the passenger areas, Captain Gifford instructed crews to show regular news broadcasts on Fox, CNN, MSNBC or PBS channels, “unless there is a general consensus among the passengers to watch a sports or weather event.”

Following a fresh wave of passenger concern, that guidance has now been revised to focus on local news and cable channels that tend to steer clear of political debate. Governors were not required to approve the update and declined to suggest any changes, although Nantucket governor and board chairman Robert Ranney of Nantucket observed that “sports will be contentious as well.”

In his report to the board, Mr. Davis said the new SSA headquarters building on Palmer avenue is edging closer to completion, with staff expected to begin moving in during the first and second weeks of February. Once the offices have been moved out of the old terminal in Woods Hole, it will be demolished and a new terminal constructed to ultimately replace the temporary terminal that opened in early December.

Governors also took a look at a preliminary capital budget, which will return for approval at next month’s regular meeting.

Vineyard governor Marc Hanover participated by speaker phone Tuesday.