by John Vezina
We know how much our ferry service means to island communities. But the geography of the San Juans can make it hard to staff our interisland boat reliably. This overview explains our commitment and the challenges we face.
Crewing the San Juans’ interisland ferry
Each sailing season starts with fully crewed boats with vacation reliefs filled when requested. But if someone calls in sick, has childcare issues or gets a flat tire, we can’t sail until we fill their spot. This year, the Legislature gave us money to add an extra ordinary sailor (deck) and oiler (engine room) to each sailing. Unfortunately, we don’t have backups for other crew positions, so if we don’t meet Coast Guard requirements, we can’t sail until we find someone. This is especially tough on our Anacortes/San Juan Islands and interisland routes because most of our employees live far away.
Our interisland ferry is based in Friday Harbor, which most crew members can’t reach by road. This makes it very hard to find relief employees.
For staff who don’t live near Anacortes, commuting to Friday Harbor adds at least five hours to their day. This makes it less attractive for them to fill relief requests on the interisland vessel. Instead, they prefer working overtime on routes closer to home.
New initiatives to support crew
Since our interisland route is a priority and one of the first to be restored, we’ve looked for ways to address these challenges. We’ve hired a charter boat to help crew members travel between Anacortes and Friday Harbor. We’ve also added wage incentives for those who work on the interisland ferry. However, work agreements don’t allow us to schedule overtime. Our on-call pool, which some see as a hiring barrier, is needed to cover staffing for all routes.
We’ve also thought about moving the interisland boat to Anacortes, to make it easier for employees to report for shifts. But this would mean the boat would have to stop in Anacortes at least four times a day for crew changes, reducing interisland service. It would also affect jobs for crew members who live in the San Juan Islands, who are our most reliable staff for this route. The high cost of living and limited housing on the islands make it hard for new crew members to move there. We will work with San Juan County officials to explore housing options for our employees.
USCG regulations limit how many hours a crew member can work in one day. If the interisland vessel falls too far behind schedule, we may have to cancel evening sailings to keep crew from working too many hours. If they work too long, they can’t work the next day. Delays can be caused by weather, medical emergencies or even small issues like someone locking their keys in their car.
Starting in winter 2025, we’re changing our sailing schedules to make service more reliable. These updates will help with crew changes and make crossing and docking times more realistic.
Sharing information with customers
We’re also improving how we communicate with our customers. If you sign up for our rider alerts, we’ll let you know if there’s a crew shortage on the interisland ferry. We send alerts three times a day if there are open relief requests so you can plan ahead. This is especially important for county workers and students commuting to school in Friday Harbor, so they can get home if the last trip of the day is canceled.
We’ve also made alternate schedules for when the interisland vessel is out of service. The three boats that serve Anacortes make extra stops to help interisland customers reach their destinations.
Our interisland route staffing challenges are clear in recent service data. From Aug. 1 to Sept. 2, we canceled 33 out of 1,814 sailings (1.8%) for the three ferries connecting the islands with Anacortes. During the same period, we canceled 120 out of 822 interisland sailings (14.6%).
We expect things to get better as we hire new employees and train existing crew members into higher positions. With a larger workforce and the changes above, more reliable service will come to our interisland route. We know how important it is to avoid interisland cancellations, and we are working hard to make service more reliable.
18 comments:
Thank you for providing the concise explanation of crewing issues and efforts to improve service between Anacortes and the islands. I have been riding the boats since 1974 and have seen lots of changes. I commend you for your service.
What about July? Please don't gloss over the abysmal inter island service? My guess is that was closer to 40% of sailings.
People can't reliably travel between islands at this point. That affects everything from Healthcare, county/ government services to yes tourists.
The Sidney run is gone, and our highway is beyond broken. please fix your house.
Thank you for sharing this information. I know you don't want to talk about the elephant in the room, the lack of full funding for boats, maintenance, crew, etc. I appreciate your exploring various solutions within the constraints under which the system operates.
I often worked as an oiler on the San Juan run during the 70’s and 80’s, including on the old Vashon when she was the inter island boat. I often slept on board, in staterooms provided for the purpose, after tying up for the night in either Anacortes or Friday Harbor. The increase in traffic to the islands in recent years, the increase in the size of cars, the increase in island property values, astounds me. The islands are being loved to death.
While the blog post acknowledges the issues are due to a system failure, the alert post indicates this is "..due to the geography of the San Juan Islands".
The geography has not changed. The system and management of the system that serves this geographical area is what has failed to change so start by stating that up front. Delays not just cancelations should be included in the statistics as those have significant impact on families and the business economy in San Juan County.
WSDOT crews do an incredible job in a broken system and are truly appreciated for their service by island residents.
How about supporting workers with a requirement or incentive for SJC ferry staff to live within a resonable geographical boundary near Anacortes? a dedicated foot passenger commuter boat for ferry workers? A small block of hotel rooms to support their off times and a local business partnerships?
Adding more workers is a start but won't happen until the significant hurdles our ferry workers face are addressed and workers know they're supported.
Having worked as a Purser in the San Juans in the late '60's and early "70's perhaps the best temporary solution is to return to the way things used to be; namely, having most sailings make all the stops until such time as there are enough boats and crew to have a dedicated inter- Island boat.
If crewing is the .biggest obstacle ĺit seems that every effort to get people to work is a priority. What about flying crew members to Friday Harbor? There are several options for flight from various points.
Mary Wondra Lopez 🏝
Per the WSF "Gray Book", the interisland vessel Tillikum is scheduled to go OOS for dockside repair on 21 October, not to return until January 2025. Of the likely replacements, the Sealth has struggled to remain in service during 2024, and the Salish is reputed to be a poor fit for the route. Meanwhile, the Wenatchee and the Cathlamet are both overdue to return from maintenance. The Kaleetan was withdrawn for drydocking at the end of July, but no contract award for the work has been posted; does this mean that it's sitting in Eagle Harbor waiting for a berth? It's been claimed that ship maintenance facilities in Washington are scarce, and more lucrative customers (e.g. U.S. Navy) are competing with WSF for space. Just how bad is the situation, and how does that affect the prospects/promises for service in general, and the interisland service in particular? Granted, the behavior of the public, online and at elections, can make it difficult to justify presenting it with authentic facts.
Thank you WSF for addressing this significant and ongoing issues. The fine people of the San Juan Islands have had more than their fair share of ferry cancelations in recent years, and while things have improved for service to and from Anacortes, I would not say the same for the inter-island service, especially this summer, which has seen service sink to downright abysmal levels. Something(s) need(s) to be done about it so that the San Juan Islands can function as they are meant to, with people being able to travel between the islands for services, school, government business, healthcare, and more. What that something(s) is/are though remain(s) open for debate. Your thought about moving the inter-island boat to Anacortes is something that had crossed my mind as well, but I do have to ask why it would need to visit Anacortes four times per day for crew changes? Could the vessel be staffed in a manner that it would only require it to be in Anacortes twice per day (overnight for layup and once during the middle of the day for a crew change)? While inter-island service would still have to be reduced under this scenario, it could still potentially allow a few oppertunities for inter-island travel each day.
It just occured to me that switching out the Tillikum for the Sealth, which is a similarly sized (additional crew members shouldn't be required, especially if the vessel is run on a license that lowers its passenger capacity down from its normal 1,200 to 600 or 800) faster vessel that can make up time better when delays occur, might cut down on some of the cancelations, particularly in the evening when the matter of preserving crew for the next day's service begins to become an issue. Is this something that WSF could implement?
M Connell, WSF has acknowledged the challenges with Interisland service in July, when crewing availability was difficult for all the reasons explained in this blog post. Instead of “glossing over” or pretending the service is adequate, we’re explaining the reasons behind the cancellations and what we’re doing to make service on the route more reliable, pointing out the exact reasons for its importance you cite in your reply.
C OKelly, the “Gray Notebook” is only a guide of likely vessel assignments and maintenance/preservation work. WSF’s Vessel Maintenance staff works on boats’ layup schedules on a daily basis, with even that sometimes changing more than once during a day. The Kaleetan has been at Anacortes’ Dakota Creek Industries since July 29, out of the water since August 15. When the Sealth is available, it’s in service, as it is now.
IDC9, With robust public involvement, WSF is currently updating its Anacortes/San Juan Islands schedules. The new schedules assume the homeport of the interisland vessel would remain Friday Harbor. This is critical to providing as much interisland service as possible, as it takes over 1.5 hours round trip from Lopez to Anacortes for our faster vessels, and about two hours for the Tillikum. Relieving in Anacortes would require the interisland vessel not make at least two trips per day, resulting in significant degradation to interisland service. To allow for contractual crew changes, one of these two trips would include the critical morning or evening commute trips (arriving in Friday Harbor around 8:30am or departing Friday Harbor around 5:30pm). WSF would need to backfill some lost interisland service using mainland vessels, with a commensurate loss of mainland capacity in the process.
IDC9, Swapping the Tillikum and Sealth as the Interisland vessel has been, and continues to be, under consideration by WSF. While there are benefits, removing an Issaquah Class vessel from service on other routes, replacing it with an Evergreen State, would likely cause systemic vessel availability issues. Discussions continue.
Thank you for the information on the Kaleetan. As of 0930 on 16 September 2024, the WSF "Contracts Search" webpage continues to show that the call for bids for the Kaleetan work is "active"; no mention of the award to Dakota Creek. Hence the concern that the Kaleetan might be "waiting for a berth", with the implied worries about boat availability.
Thank you for responding to my comments. The dialogue is most appreciated. If the Tillikum did have to make two trips per day to and from Anacortes for interisland crew changes, would she be able to take traffic heading to and from on those sailings? If she could, that would make up for some of the mainland capacity loss that would occur. Or would these be deadhead runs much like what the Tillikum currently does on most Sundays after completing the 2:15/2:25 run from Friday Harbor?
It is good to hear that you are at least considering swapping the Tillikum and Sealth as the Interisland vessel. However, you say that doing so would likely cause "systemic vessel availability issues". Why do you believe that could potentially be the case? I fully acknowledge that the Tillikum is a slower vessel than the Sealth, and might not be suitable for filling in on as many routes as the Sealth. I also acknowledge that the Tillikum is an older vessel, and may need more maintenance time than the other vessels as she continues to age. However, I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the idea that vessel availability would signifacantly worsen if the Tillikum and Sealth were swapped.
Thanks for this succinct explanation! Also a shout out to both dispatchers and crew schedulers- this has to be a very difficult and frustrating time for them….
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