WSF Weekly Report | Rescue near Bremerton; online open house for SJs; Navy band

||| FROM WASHINGTON STATE FERRIES

A message from Steve

It’s no surprise that I’m often asked how we’re doing at Washington State Ferries. For many a ride on one of our vessels is usually a fun, or even mundane experience. But looking at our system as a whole, I have to say we’re often not meeting customer expectations. I know crewing remains a challenge. We’re doing our best to provide as much service as possible with the staffing and resources currently available. Things will get better, we have solutions in place to get there, but it will take time.

We remain committed to recruiting, hiring and developing skilled mariners, but with customer and crew safety always our first priority, this requires a lot of training. Just this week we saw why this preparation is so important when our Walla Walla crewmembers assisted in a rescue off Bremerton. There will be bumps along the way, but we’re moving in the right direction. Thank you for your continued patience as we work toward making our ferry system healthy, reliable and resilient in the long term.

Our crew aboard Walla Walla rescued a person and a dog after their boat capsized near the Bremerton terminal Tuesday evening. They treated the victim for hypothermia and chest pains before transferring care to emergency medical technicians on shore. The U.S. Coast Guard and the local fire department saved the other two victims.

Online open house for update to Anacortes/San Juan Islands route schedules

We want your feedback on proposed changes to our Anacortes/San Juan Islands route timetables. We launched an online open house this week to provide information about the schedule rewrite process, share draft timetables developed by a community task force and allow visitors to submit their input. The open house will be online through Friday, Aug. 23.

The current schedules for our Anacortes/San Juan Islands route have not been updated in 10-15 years. They need to be revised to improve on-time performance and reliability, and to align with the vehicle reservations program that started in 2015.

Pacific NorthWest Economic Region Annual Summit

I had the privilege to represent Washington State Ferries and speak at the 33rd Pacific NorthWest Economic Region Annual Summit in Whistler, British Columbia last week. During a panel discussion on maritime decarbonization and coastal trade, I was proud to share our journey to zero emissions by 2050 and how we’re working to be stewards of the environment. The event brings together people in both the policy and business worlds to discuss regional challenges and figure out possible solutions.

Navy Band Northwest blows a different horn aboard Tacoma

Five members of Navy Band Northwest performed on our ferry Tacoma yesterday. The brass quintet created a festive atmosphere for passengers heading between Bainbridge Island and Seattle, playing a variety of compositions from “Anchors Aweigh” to “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” to “Bad Romance.” Members of the band are playing several shows across Seattle for Fleet Week.

The Navy Band Northwest Brass Quintet performs on the sun deck of Tacoma.

Sailing stats for week of July 22-28

For the week of July 22-28, we completed 97% of our 2,829 scheduled sailings. We were able to replace one of our 85 canceled sailings that were due to crewing (40%), tides (9%) and schedule resets (51%), when a boat is so far behind schedule, we cancel a sailing to get it back on schedule, providing predictability for customers.

Customer kudos

RAVE to the Bainbridge ferry crew who left early for a medical emergency. The Swedish surgical team who were operating within an hour of arrival provided excellent post-op care. -Seattle/Bainbridge route customer