A mechanical failure aboard the Steamship Authority’s M/V Nantucket Saturday morning led to travel delays and confusion on both sides of Vineyard Sound.

“We had a rather chaotic two days going between the Vineyard and Woods Hole,” said James Malkin, who represents the Island on the boat line board of governors, at the board’s online monthly meeting Tuesday morning.

A governor is also an engine device that regulates speed. It was the Nantucket’s rear port governor that failed on Saturday, SSA director of marine operations Mark Amundsen said Tuesday.

The device was due for replacement, Mr. Amundsen said, and a new part was on hand. But the boat line technician who is trained to install and calibrate the device was not available until Sunday morning, he said.

“We should have done a better job. I take that personally,” Mr. Amundsen said. “Our team is really very good. We just didn’t have the right person with the right skill set to dial that in.”

With the Nantucket out of service Saturday, the SSA swapped in the M/V Sankaty, which carries up to 300 passengers and crew.

That’s fewer, by more than half, than the Nantucket’s rated capacity of 768, leading hundreds of people and numerous vehicles to be turned away from some trips.

Boat line general manager Robert Davis thanked the Martha’s Vineyard Transit Authority for coming to the aid of passengers who were cut off from boarding the Sankaty in Oak Bluffs.

“On very short notice they were able to get some buses to the Oak Bluffs terminal,” Mr. Davis said.

While the larger M/V Island Home was deploying its hydraulic lift decks, which can carry an extra 16 passenger cars, many of the vehicles traveling Saturday couldn’t fit into them, SSA director of shoreside operations Alison Fletcher said Tuesday.

“We had a lot of larger SUVs, with cargo carriers on the roof or bike racks on the back, and that unfortunately null and voids them from going on the lift decks,” Ms. Fletcher told the board.

“We were struggling at points just to find cars to go up there, that would fit up there,” she said.

Vehicle drivers who couldn’t use their reservations Saturday were offered vouchers for two days of parking at SSA lots and travel as a walk-in passenger, according to boat line communications director Sean Driscoll, who chronicled the weekend’s travel updates on SSA social media channels.

Travel was still disordered Sunday morning, with some trips delayed in order to provide crew members with their Coast Guard-mandated overnight rest hours. The Sankaty also ran an extra trip Sunday to help with the vehicle backlog, Mr. Driscoll posted.

Mr. Malkin, who said he spent part of Saturday observing conditions at the Woods Hole terminal, praised the SSA staffers working that day.

“The staff on the ground did a wonderful job of handling very excited, and in some cases unhappy, passengers,” Mr. Malkin said.