Steamship Authority officials were in the hot seat Tuesday evening, taking comments and questions from an audience of more than 100 at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center in Vineyard Haven. 

Cancellations and diversions, elusive reservations, crew shortages and the slow progress toward a new Steamship Authority website were among the top concerns expressed by some three dozen Islanders who spoke during the two-hour public forum.

“Every cancellation, every diversion actually affects us in a significant way,” said Larkin Stallings, owner of the Ritz Café in Oak Bluffs and president of the town’s business association.

More than 100 people were in attendance.

Jeanna Shepard

More than 100 people were in attendance.

Jeanna Shepard

“It’s costing real people real money [and] livelihoods are sometimes on the line,” Mr. Stallings said.

A host of officials from the boat line were present. Outgoing general manager Robert Davis, engineering and maintenance director Mark Amundsen, shoreside operations director Alison Fletcher and veteran port Captain Paul Hennessy were all peppered with questions from the public. The Vineyard’s board of governors representative James Malkin, and the Island’s two port council members John Cahill of Tisbury and Joe Sollitto of Oak Bluffs were also on hand to field queries. 

The number of cancellations this summer, some due to crew shortages, were chief among the concerns Vineyarders raised. 

Julie Anne McNary, who commutes from Vineyard Haven to Boston three days a week, said she’d received 72 SSA emails about cancellations and diversions since Oct. 1.

“I get treated unbelievably well by the extraordinary staff on the boats and on the ground, but … I have never seen this level of dysfunction in boats being canceled and boats being diverted and boats being whatever,” she said.

“I just don’t understand,” she said. “There’s got to be a breaking point.”

The Steamship Authority does everything it can to avoid canceling a trip for weather or mechanical reasons, Mr. Davis said.

“The crews, the engineers and terminal workers will want to hold that boat as long as possible, to see if the issue can be rectified,” he said.

Mechanical cancellations have accounted for less than .57 per cent of the Steamship Authority’s scheduled Vineyard trips this year, Mr. Malkin said, referring to data covering January through September. Nearly 1.4 per cent of scheduled departures were canceled due to weather, .33 per cent for crew shortages and 3.7 per cent for trip consolidations, which mainly affect freight boats.

The Vineyard cancellation rate compares favorably with the Washington state ferry system and services in Boston and New York, Mr. Malkin said.

“In Bay State [Cruise Company], in Washington state and also in Staten Island, they aim for cancellations of less than 5 per cent,” he said.

General manager Robert Davis addresses the crowd.

Jeanna Shepard

General manager Robert Davis addresses the crowd.

Jeanna Shepard

Outside the film center, more than half a dozen uniformed captains and pilots greeted arriving audience members with a hand-out that called for better pay and recruitment to address mounting crew shortages aboard Steamship Authority ferries.

The officers then took seats inside the theatre, where Islanders voiced support for their ongoing contract negotiations

“I think that the people who work on the boat should get more money, instead of building more buildings,” said Julie Robinson of West Tisbury, drawing applause.

Other speakers also slammed the boat line’s decision to build a costly new ticket office, now under construction in Woods Hole.

“What we need right now is crew,” said Margaret Hannemann.

The terminal building is bankrolled by borrowing, through a capital improvement fund that can’t be used for operating expenses such as payroll, Mr. Davis said.

Staff recruitment, training and advancement to deal with the staffing shortage makes up a large chunk of the increase in next year’s Steamship Authority budget, approved by the board of governors Tuesday morning.

Mr. Davis said the boat line has been attending job fairs at maritime academies as far away as Texas and California to recruit cadets for Steamship Authority jobs, although most hires have come from closer to home.

Chris Lyons raises concerns.

Jeanna Shepard

Chris Lyons raises concerns.

Jeanna Shepard

“This past summer we had six or seven from Mass Maritime and another four from Maine Maritime that were working for us as cadets,” he said.

“We’re trying to develop that pipeline to  … let them realize that they don’t have to go out deep sea, that there’s opportunities here,” Mr. Davis said.

Among other topics Tuesday night, Islanders assailed the snail’s pace of progress on the new Steamship Authority website. The boat line’s antiquated reservation software, which dates from the 1990s, has been holding up progress and is due to be replaced, according to Mr. Malkin.

The new reservation system also should help solve a persistent annoyance for Islanders: seeing empty spaces on a ferry when the trip was sold out online. Because the current booking system for freight is based on size ranges, rather than specific lengths, a canceled truck or two early in the day can snowball into more wasted space, Ms. Fletcher said.

Angela Campbell, who manages reservations, said that booking by the foot should allow her department to manage deck space more efficiently, so that motorists can take the spots left open by truck cancellations.

Tuesday’s public forum, hosted by Dukes County Commission chair Christine Todd and moderated by West Tisbury resident John Abrams, also drew more than 40 spectators via Zoom.

A video of the forum is posted on the Steamship Authority’s YouTube channel.