Steering issues on the ferry Island Home led to the cancellation of two round trips on the Steamship Authority’s Vineyard route Wednesday morning.

The SSA was forced to cancel its 6 a.m. round trip starting from Woods Hole due to the mechanical issues. The vessel was also pulled from its 8:15 a.m. round trip, leading to the cancellation of both the 7:00 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. Vineyard Haven to Woods Hole trips.

In an email to the Gazette, SSA spokesman Sean Driscoll said that the ferry was taken out of service due to an issue with its steering and has since been cleared to return.

The SSA ran the M/V Nantucket in its place.

“Two round trips were canceled, and the M/V Nantucket came from Fairhaven to pick up service starting with the 10:45 a.m. trip,” Mr. Driscoll wrote. “The Island Home has been cleared to return to service and should be doing so with the 1:15 p.m. departure from Woods Hole. The Nantucket will run one extra trip to the Vineyard to help clean up the traffic waiting in Woods Hole before returning to Fairhaven.”

The Island Home was also removed from service approximately two weeks ago after engineers observed vibration on the vessel’s propeller shaft, leading to two late-night round trip cancellations and stranding a number of travelers in Woods Hole at the end of February vacation week. At that time, the SSA also brought the M/V Nantucket from Fairhaven to help with traffic backup.

The Island Home had previously been in Fairhaven for regularly-scheduled maintenance work.