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Good afternoon,
Here is this week’s WSF weekly service update. Please let me know if you have questions.
Best,
Hadley
WSF Weekly Media Highlights
Cruise Line Experience Helped Prepare Ferry Executive For Top Spot At WSF – Mukilteo Beacon (attached).
Major Issues of the Week
With an increase in health-related relief requests and summer holiday/vacation leave, crewing was a challenge last week. As explained below in “Service Reliability”, that was especially
true on the Interisland route in the San Juans.
At the beginning of every sailing season, every watch, on every sailing, is crewed. Now, with thanks to the legislature and Governor Inslee, WSF has funding to add an Ordinary Sailor
(Deck) and Oiler (Engine Room) to sailings, giving us redundancy for those positions. However, if we’re short on U.S. Coast Guard-required crew positions due to last-minute relief
requests, for the safety of passengers and crew, we cannot sail until missing positions are filled.
When a relief request comes in for a position, whether a week or an hour before a watch is scheduled to start, Dispatch works on filling it. The vast majority of the time they are successful
in doing so, without the public knowing there had been a potential for service to be disrupted on their route. Additionally, at the request of island customers, dispatch and web agents
now check in three times a day on crewing for the San Juan Islands Interisland and Point Defiance/Tahlequah routes, so we can alert customers in advance if there’s a danger of a sailing
being cancelled, giving island residents with no drive around options time to plan accordingly.
After 6pm last night, due to crewing, we went down to one-boat service on the Fauntleroy/Southworth/Vashon Triangle route, already reduced from three-boat service to two. And, while
we were ultimately able to fully crew the vessels, last night we alerted customers on the Port Townsend/Coupeville route their one-boat service may be suspended to start the day and
the same warning was sent to Clinton/Mukilteo customers that they too would possibly be on one-boat service this morning. Dispatch was able to fill the positions, but customers likely
changed plans based on the alerts.
There is nothing cavalier or insensitive about WSF staff’s commitment to filling these relief requests. We understand every cancelled sailing affects and frustrates our customers.
We’re working hard with the new resources provided by the governor and the legislature to recruit, hire, and train new employees, but having enough relief employees for the senior positions
causing many of the recent cancellations will take more time to fill as unlicensed engine room and deck employees work on the credentialing necessary to become licensed.
Service Reliability*
For the week of July 1-7, systemwide service reliability was 95.6%, down from 99% the previous week. Last week we cancelled 129 of 2827 scheduled sailings, of which six were replaced.
Of the 129 cancellations, 63% (81) were due to crewing, 19% (25) for schedule resets (when a boat is so far behind schedule, we cancel a sailing to get it back on schedule, providing
predictability for customers), 16% (20) were due to low tides (only on the Port Townsend/Coupeville route), and 1% (1) for mechanical reasons (one roundtrip missed last night on the
Bremerton/Seattle route).
Of the 81 sailings cancelled due to crewing, 60 were on the San Juan Islands “Interisland” route, which had to tie up each night for its last round trip. With each leg of the Interisland
route counting as either four or six sailings, those cancellations are impactful to our customers and overall service statistics.
*For WSF, “reliability” refers to a scheduled sailing taking places, not on-time-performance. We understand for the public a significantly late sailing isn’t “reliable,” but we also
share on-time-performance data <https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/wsferries/viz/WSF-Public/Index> for transparency on both metrics.
Vessel Availability
We’re operating at our 15-vessel current service level, operating a third “bonus” boat on the Triangle route, with unscheduled operations focused on keeping the other two boats on the
route on schedule. We’ll operate the third boat weekdays, for one watch, when we have the vessel and crewing availability to do so.
Over the weekend we were able to restore regular summer vehicle capacity on the Edmonds/Kingston route and earlier today restored additional vehicle capacity to the Clinton/Mukilteo
route.
On Wednesday/Thursday, to facilitate repairs to the 188-vehicle Walla Walla, currently assigned to the Bremerton/Seattle route, we’ll move the 144-vehicle Chimacum from the Bainbridge
route to Bremerton, replacing it with the 90-vehicle Sealth. We appreciate customers’ patience while we do this required work on the Walla Walla.
New Vessels and Jumbo Mark II Conversions
New Vessels – We have released the first part of an Invitation For Bid, allowing us to begin prequalifying shipyards, moving to selecting a shipyard(s) by the end of the year. We are
still scheduled to deliver two boats in 2028.
Hybrid Conversions – Work continues on the Wenatchee, the first Jumbo Mark II vessel undergoing its long-planned midlife propulsion upgrade. That work includes on-going coordination
with the shipyard on when the conversion will be completed and the vessel ready to return to service.