A year ago this month the Steamship Authority hit bottom — not with the soft grounding of the ferry Woods Hole in Vineyard Haven on March 15, but two days later on St. Patrick’s Day.

On that day the ferry Martha’s Vineyard lost power to both engines on the last trip from Woods Hole and had to drop anchor off East Chop for several hours, with more than 80 people aboard, before she could be towed ashore at around 1 a.m.

It was the most dramatic, but far from the only example of the SSA’s troubles, which began in January when the reservations website slowed to a crawl just as bookings opened up for the season. In March, a continuing series of breakdowns led to hundreds of trip cancellations. An email glitch blocked travelers from receiving alerts and updates.

The problems were made worse by the absence of multiple ferries undergoing shipyard repairs and scheduled maintenance.

And while SSA officials at first dismissed the spate of internet woes and vessel breakdowns as a “perfect storm” of events that were unlikely to recur, a detailed report by outside consultants later reached an opposite conclusion. If the SSA doesn’t update its operations to meet current marine industry standards, things will only get worse, the report said.

On Tuesday night Islanders will hear firsthand what the SSA needs to do to avoid more failures and regain the public trust.

The meeting begins at 6 p.m. in the high school Performing Arts Center.

John Sainsbury, president of maritime specialists HMS Consulting in Seattle, will take the Vineyard audience through the results and recommendations from a months-long review that began last summer.

The report was released in December; this marks its first formal public airing on the Vineyard. A similar meeting will be held on Nantucket tonight.

The comprehensive review of operations was commissioned in June, for $218,000, to examine fleet maintenance, vessel operations, management structure, public communications, and information technology. Consultants found each of the five areas lacking industry-standard systems and procedures that could have prevented nearly all of the 2018 failures, both on board and online.

The report also urges the SSA to develop a long-term vision and a strategic plan.

“Focus on the long term, and you’ll fix the short-term items in the process,” Mr. Sainsbury told a small audience at Falmouth High School in December.

Last month, HMS added a supplement reviewing the SSA’s public communications.

At December’s presentation in Falmouth, Mr. Sainsbury praised the SSA for its achievements as a self-sustaining service that receives no government subsidies.

“Every ferry service has its own set of unique challenges,” he said. “What they do accomplish with the resources that they have is pretty extraordinary,” he continued.

“While this report is by nature somewhat critical, we’re looking at how they can improve a pretty good system,” Mr. Sainsbury said.

Nonetheless, the report describes a boat line that lacks many basic elements of a successful marine operation, from procedures and safeguards to prevent breakdowns to a long-term vision and strategic plan.

Making the recommended changes will cost money and take time, Mr. Sainsbury said in December.

“I’m not sugar-coating it,” he told the board of governors and senior managers. “There’s no half measures here.”