Weekly WSF report indicates they are ‘working on it’

||| FROM NICOLE MCINTOSH for WASHINGTON STATE FERRIES |||

Service restoration plan

Today, we released our COVID-19 Service Restoration Plan, which outlines steps to restore service to pre-pandemic levels on a route-by-route basis. However, our restoration efforts have been underway for months, with full service back to reliable levels on our Anacortes/San Juan Islands route and tonight, the resumption of late-night sailings on our Seattle/Bremerton run. The next route we will work to restore is Seattle/Bainbridge. We know our alternate service schedules are having a severe impact on many of our riders and we’re committed to keeping you updated on our restoration efforts.

We have 15 deck employees training to become mates, which will be incredibly helpful with our crewing situation. A few of them are seen here using our Navigation Lab.

We continue to actively recruit, hire and train new employees, but with U.S. Coast Guard and Department of Homeland Security credentialing for vessel positions, and the weeks of training necessary for licensed deck positions, we want to remind everyone that it will take time to restore service across our system. We will unfortunately, not have enough crewing available to restart international Sidney, British Columbia service and a second boat on our Port Townsend/Coupeville route during our upcoming spring sailing season, which starts on April 10.

Spring season vehicle reservations now available

Vehicle reservations for travel on March 27 to June 18 on our Anacortes/San Juan Islands and Port Townsend/ Coupeville routes are now available. This morning’s release includes the final two weeks of winter season (March 27 to April 9) and our spring season (April 10 to June 18). As a reminder, we pushed back the start of our spring season by two weeks to ensure increased reliability as we work to increase to spring service levels while continuing to face crewing challenges. For our Anacortes/San Juan Islands run, another batch of reservations will be released two weeks before each specific sailing and again two days before.

Basic first-aid course

With safety our number one priority, it’s important to keep our employees up to date with training on how to respond to emergencies. As part of our focus on workforce development, we recently conducted a basic first-aid course for terminal staff. The class covered emergency response procedures, CPR and how to use our new automated external defibrillators. Our training department is planning to offer this course on a regular basis to all our terminal employees as we continue to look for more ways to invest in our employees’ professional development!

Employees are trained in how to properly use our new automated external defibrillators in the event there is an emergency at one of our facilities.

Eric comes to us from Holland America Group

New vessel engineering and maintenance director

We have a new director of vessel engineering and maintenance. Eric Visser started last week to take over for Matt Von Ruden, who is transitioning to a new role as system electrification administrator. Eric will oversee our teams in our vessel engine rooms, Eagle Harbor Maintenance Facility, warehouse and headquarters, continuing Matt’s hard work to keep our fleet operational. Welcome aboard Eric, as we venture into an exciting new era of vessel modernization!

Daylight saving time and our sailing schedules

Mark your calendar! Daylight saving time begins at 2 a.m. Sunday, March 13. We will operate the full sailing day of Saturday, March 12, on Pacific Standard Time. We will operate on daylight saving time beginning with the first departures of the sailing day Sunday on each route.

40-year service award

Ticket Seller Mary Hobson was presented with a ship’s bell and certificate this week for her 40 years of service.

Director of Operations Steve Nevey presented another 40-year service award this week. This time to Ticket Seller Mary Hobson at our Southworth terminal! Mary started in the galley and has been a ticket seller for the past 31 years. Thank you, Mary, for your service and dedication over the years. Congratulations!

“Miracle [Medema, terminal employee] has been covering at the Southworth terminal this week, normally she is Fauntleroy. Even as a stand in she took time to make passengers feel welcome and create a positive atmosphere. She did this without being intrusive or performative, I get the impression she is just a genuine customer focused person.”

-Fauntleroy/Southworth customer