Two Freight Boats Fail on Busy Weekend

By JAMES KINSELLA
Gazette Senior Writer

The nearly simultaneous failure Saturday evening of the two
Steamship Authority freight vessels on the Vineyard route stranded about
200 people Saturday evening and Sunday morning - 100 people each
in Vineyard Haven and Woods Hole.

SSA general manager Wayne Lamson said the generator failed on the
freight ferry Sankaty, and after the boat line took that vessel out of
service, a problem developed with the reduction gears in the freight
ferry Katama, leading the Authority to take that vessel off-line.

Witnesses said the shutdown of service was attended by a lack of
disseminated information at the Vineyard Haven terminal about what had
happened or when service would resume. A number of people spent the
night sleeping on the beach next to the terminal or in their cars.

"It was crazy," said one of the affected travelers,
Narine Chalumyan, who lives in the Boston area. "It was very
unorganized."

The Sankaty returned to service Sunday morning, and took over the
Katama's Woods Hole-Oak Bluffs route. Later that day, the
Authority brought in the freight ferry Governor, which the boat line has
been keeping in Fairhaven as a back-up vessel, and put her on the
Sankaty's Woods Hole-Vineyard Haven route.

The Katama returned to service yesterday morning.

Mr. Lamson said all travelers and their vehicles whose reservations
had been displaced Saturday evening or Sunday morning had reached the
Vineyard by 6 p.m. Sunday, or had reached Woods Hole by the end of the
evening Sunday.

To ease complications from the breakdowns, Mr. Lamson said the
Authority offered to let people go ahead on foot, and drive their
vehicles on and off later ferries as spaces became available. The boat
line also cancelled day-of-sailing reservations to devote those spaces
to the displaced travelers, and ran an extra trip with the Sankaty to
help get the affected travelers and their vehicles across Vineyard
Sound.

The failure of the two freight vessels on a reservations-only summer
weekend displaced travelers waiting on the Vineyard and in Woods Hole
with reservations to board those vessels. Under Authority policy,
displaced travelers are not given priority, but have to wait for spaces
to subsequently open up on future trips.

Mr. Lamson, who was returning from an out-of-state trip Saturday
evening to his Falmouth home, got to the Woods Hole terminal around 11
p.m. He said the crews on the other Authority ferries operating on the
route had reached the end of their shifts, and that the Authority did
not succeed in putting together a crew to offer additional runs that
evening or early the next morning.

No general announcements were made to the stranded travelers in
Vineyard Haven about the reason for the cancelled trips or when they
could expect the trips to resume. A timed recorded announcement,
however, continued to remind them that Coast Guard regulations forbad
them to leave their luggage alone at the terminal. Mr. Lamson said he
did not know why no general announcements were made on the situation.

Ms. Chalumyan, who was visiting the Vineyard with her sister and
their parents, had a reservation to leave the Island at 11 p.m. She said
the Authority did not notify her that the boats had broken down, even
though the breakdowns had occurred hours earlier.

She said she arrived at the Vineyard Haven terminal only to learn
that the boat might not be running. She then had to wait another 45
minutes to learn that no boat, in fact, would be running that evening.

Ms. Chalumyan returned with her family to the home of a friend with
whom they were staying, leaving her car in line. She was back down at
5:30 the next morning to await the resumption of service.

She finally got off the Island with her family on a trip out of Oak
Bluffs at 10:45 a.m. Sunday. She said she likely would have had to wait
several more hours, but was able to plead successfully on behalf of her
father, who has Alzheimer's and whose condition was deteriorating.

"They should have been more organized," she said of the
boat line workers. "None of them wanted to take any
responsibility."

But Mr. Lamson said: "I think the terminal managers did a
great job under the circumstances."

He said Authority machinists and electricians worked all night on
the Sankaty and long into Sunday on the Katama to return the vessels to
service.

Holding up the repair on the Katama, Mr. Lamson said, was the lack
of parts on hand to complete the repair. The parts, flown in from
Louisiana, did not arrive at the dock until Sunday afternoon.