WSF Weekly Report | Virtual public meetings coming up; reiterating interisland staffing challenge

||| FROM STEVE NEVEY for WASHINGTON STATE FERRIES |||

A message from Steve

For the last three years, one of our key priorities has been creating a clear career pathway to the pilothouse to prepare for retirements and build future resilience. First, we helped entry-level staff grow within the organization, making sure they have the time and qualifications to become captains. We then turned to building a high school-to-pilothouse pipeline. This led to our full-ride scholarship program, which helps high school graduates with no maritime experience move into licensed deck officer jobs in 2.5 years.

Showing today’s youth what it’s like to work aboard our ferries is the first step in building our next generation of mariners.

This month, our partnership with Maritime High School will expand with the start of our Classroom on the Water program. It turns our ferries into real-world learning environments where students work on hands-on projects. The multi-day experience is designed to excite students about a career in maritime and get them engaged in developing their skills and knowledge in vessel operations.

Combined with our other programs, we now have a fully developed path to the pilothouse. And it’s not just for future captains – many may choose to work toward becoming chief engineers. We’re proud of the career pipelines we’ve built to help people grow and shape the future of Washington State Ferries.

Virtual public meetings, Sept. 24 and 25

Mark your calendar! We’re hosting two virtual community meetings this month to provide a recap on our busy peak summer travel season, as well as the latest information on crewing and service reliability. The meetings will be at noon Tuesday, Sept. 24, and 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 25. Both meetings will cover the same material. Participants will be able to ask questions and provide comments. Advance registration is required.

Email us if you would like to send in questions ahead of the meetings.

Youth Maritime Career Launch internships

Potential interns participating in the Port of Seattle’s Youth Maritime Career Launch program toured the Chimacum engine room and wheelhouse recently. The program offers a three-month paid internship for young adults, connecting them to maritime jobs. Our intern last year, Martrez Darden, now works with us as a wiper and led part of the tour. The new interns start next month, and like Martrez, we hope to hire them if they choose this career.

U.S. Coast Guard Seattle Regional Examiner Center Chief Ken Heaton administers the Merchant Mariner Oath to our five internship candidates in the Chimacum wheelhouse.

A representative from the Port of Seattle, the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle and Maritime Blue joined our five internship candidates on the vessel tour, when they had the opportunity to meet and talk with our crew members working aboard Chimacum.

Work of Eagle Harbor employees featured in magazine

Five of our Eagle Harbor Maintenance Facility employees are featured in the latest issue of PNW Bainbridge. The magazine’s article, “Faces Behind the Ferries,” highlights the important work our shipyard staff does to keep our vessels and terminals running smoothly. See what they do and hear their stories on pages 48-54 of the fall 2024 issue. Thanks to our Eagle Harbor employees for your great teamwork and skills. We’re proud to celebrate your contributions.

Carpenter Rick Northon working in the sign shop at our Eagle Harbor Maintenance Facility. Photo courtesy PNW Bainbridge.

Challenges of staffing our San Juans’ interisland boat

We know that even one canceled sailing is unacceptable, especially in island communities like the San Juans. However, their unique geography also adds extra challenges to crewing the interisland vessel. We recently posted a blog about what it takes to staff this boat. It also explains what we’ve done and what we plan to do to make interisland service more reliable.

Because our interisland vessel is homeported in Friday Harbor, most of our crew members can’t drive to that port, making it difficult to find relief employees.

Community appreciation for temporary 2nd boat on Port Townsend/Coupeville route

For the first time since before the pandemic, we ran a second boat on our Port Townsend/Coupeville route last weekend. The temporary service was added to help with the large crowds attending the Wooden Boat Festival. From Friday through Sunday, we carried nearly 13,000 people on the run, up about 3,000 from the same weekend in 2023. With community members sending us positive and appreciative comments, we look forward to the day we have the crewing and vessel availability to permanently add back the second boat there during the peak travel season.

City of Port Townsend officials shared this photo with us Friday of several people disembarking the ferry, delivering hundreds of pedestrians into their community.

Sailing stats for week of Sept. 2-8

For the week of Sept. 2-8, we completed 98.3% of our 2,887 scheduled sailings. We replaced 14 of our 62 cancellations, of which 30 were due to crewing, 23 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), seven because a vessel was out of service and two due to an emergency.

Customer kudos

“RAVE to the Washington State Ferries workers, who, on a busy Labor Day weekend, came to our immediate aid when our car wouldn’t start when arriving in Kingston. They charged our dead battery in no time and were very gracious. Rave to all the crew members of the ferry system.”

-Edmonds/Kingston route customer in The Seattle Times