Steamship Board Chair Blasts Inspection Lapses

Steamship Authority board chair Peter Jeffrey publicly rebuked the boat line’s staff on Tuesday for procedural failures that sidelined two ferries this month.

The M/V Island Home and M/V Monomoy were both abruptly pulled from service for not having the proper inspections or licenses to sail, causing several cancellations on the Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket routes. At this month’s board meeting, held on Nantucket, management disclosed that one staff member was fired over the issue.

“The recent lapses involving the inspections of the Monomoy and Island Home were preventable and unacceptable,” Mr. Jeffrey said at the outset of the meeting.

“Required inspections and operating certificates are not mere paperwork. They are prerequisites to lawful and reliable service,” he said.

On Saturday, the Steamship Authority took its largest ferry from service after discovering that the M/V Island Home’s 10-year federal radio license had expired, rendering the boat illegal to operate. Several runs were missed and delays continued after a backup ferry, M/V Martha’s Vineyard, arrived from her slip in Fairhaven later in the day, said Steamship general manager Alex Kryska. 

“The Martha’s Vineyard is smaller than the Island Home, so we were spending a lot of time playing catch-up … throughout the weekend,” Mr. Kryska said.

The Island Home was back in service Tuesday morning after the Federal Communications Commission renewed her license, he said.

The M/V Barnstable also ran into trouble this week on the way back to Hyannis after dry dock repairs, Mr. Kryska said.

“The rear gates weren’t properly secured, and so when she was passing through Quick’s Hole, she hit some waves, and both the rear gates were lost overboard,” he said.

The sunken gates were subsequently located and divers were scheduled to raise them Tuesday, Mr. Kryska said, so that the Barnstable can go back to work on the Nantucket route.

“The Coast Guard would not let her run with just a chain gate on the back,” he said. “So we put her [on the Vineyard run] and had to send one of the other boats out to Nantucket.”

These latest mishaps followed the discovery earlier this month that the M/V Monomoy had missed at least one required Coast Guard inspection this year, leading the federal agency to pull the freighter from service for 24 hours.

Investigating the Monomoy lapse, the Steamship Authority found other vessels that had missed their inspections, which are required by the Coast Guard to take place three times a year, Mr. Kryska said.

“We found that the Woods Hole had not had those inspections done this year, and the Coast Guard being on board was able to rectify that immediately and let the boat sail,” he said.

The Island Home also was found to be behind on inspections, as well as on its FCC ship station license, Mr. Kryska said.

“This is a 10-year license, so we should have known about it coming for a long time,” he said.

The Steamship Authority fleet has a safety and quality management system that’s supposed to notify management when inspections and licenses are due, but its procedures — including four inspections a year, exceeding the Coast Guard standard — were not observed, Mr. Kryska said.

“The system had been in place for a couple years … and it had been signed off on by multiple people. And had it been followed, it would have given us notification. We would have known,” he said.

“Unfortunately, it had not been followed, and that is why we came to where we are,” Mr. Kryska said.

Ted Gavin, who represents Martha’s Vineyard on the Steamship Authority board, pressed for more public details on the aftermath of the discovery that procedures had not been followed.

“When you determined the point of failure with respect to the certificate of inspection lapses …that individual was relieved of their responsibilities, and ultimately their employment was terminated, correct?”

“Yes,” Mr. Kryska said.

“We’ve taken immediate action to rectify the challenge we have right now, but I think our next step is to ensure it doesn’t happen again,” he said.

Chief operating officer Mark Amundsen told the board he accepts responsibility for the failures.

“From the operations point of view, this is indefensible,” he said.

Mr. Kryska promised the board a full accounting of what went wrong and how the Steamship Authority can avoid future lapses, along with evidence that the entire fleet has all the necessary certifications.

“I will have that report ready for you for the next board meeting [Oct. 21 in Vineyard Haven],” he said.

He also has been in contact with the Coast Guard sector commander for Woods Hole, Capt. Youngmee Moon, Mr. Kryska said.

“We’ll be letting her know what our outcomes are on this, and keeping her apprised,” he said.

In other business Tuesday, Mr. Kryska asked the Steamship Authority board to consider another postponement of the launch date for the long-awaited new reservations system.

The complexities of the boat line’s ticketing operation, which spans walk-on passengers, multiple types of motor vehicle bookings and the majority of Island-bound freight, have required time-consuming alterations by software firm E-Dea, he said.

“We have a lot of nuances as far as Head Start [early bookings], our bulk [freight] system, our excursion fares,” Mr. Kryska said.

“If we had taken an off-the-shelf system, we would have been there by now. But because we are actually adapting that system, it’s taking longer,” he said.

Testing the software has also made heavy demands on the Steamship Authority, which has been pulling staffers onto the project despite their other duties, Mr. Kryska said.

“There’s a lot of heavy lifting being done, and it’s proving to be a lot harder to reach those goals than we expected,” he said.

Instead of rolling out the entire system at once in early 2027, Mr. Kryska and treasurer/comptroller Mark Rozum suggested beginning with one ferry: the high-speed M/V Iyanough, which carries passengers between Nantucket and Hyannis.

The new reservations system is already capable of issuing single-passenger tickets, Mr. Rozum said, while the authority and E-Dea are still grappling with how to program for bulk freight shipments, Head Start reservations and other longstanding Steamship Authority services.

He recommended continuing the existing reservations system for traditional ferries while moving the Iyanough to the new system in late March.

“What [this] allows us to do is almost like a soft launch, where our employees and our customers get used to the system. It gives us more time to set up their profiles and information before a Head Start,” Mr. Rozum said.

“Also, we can gauge what the system performance is on scale with just doing the fast ferry, and extrapolate how it would be,” he said.

Board members agreed to have the information technology steering committee discuss the proposal further at its meeting Sept. 22.

Three public information sessions on the new reservations system, originally scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday, were cancelled following the board meeting.

Also Tuesday, Mr. Kryska raised a recent request from port council member Joe Sollitto to revive the standby lines in Woods Hole and Vineyard Haven.

Mr. Kryska suggested offering standby from late October to late January, but suspending it for the busy Thanksgiving holiday travel season.

He said he would bring the topic back to the board next month, after meeting with Woods Hole officials.