— from Jim Corenman, Ferry Advisory Committee member —
Orcas Issues recently contacted our Ferry Advisory Committee member to address our burning question about the reason for so many recent deviations from the posted ferry schedule: WTF WSF?
The good news is that summer schedule is only a few days away, but one of the most vexing problems (Elwha) may not go away.
First, we’ve got to remember that spring and fall are shoulder seasons, and transitional. Traffic is light in the winter into early spring (March), but as summer approaches traffic increases towards summer levels. In previous years this was a slow transition, but reservations have been successful at pushing visitors into traveling earlier in the spring and later in the fall, and also pushes locals earlier and later in each day to get a reservation. Also, in years past, summer schedule started in early June, but this was shifted to late June a couple of years ago. This year spring schedule started at the end of March and runs through June 23– which is a very busy time.
So the spring/fall schedule is a compromise — more service than needed in March and early April and less than needed in June. And by June we are suffering full boats, more traffic than can be loaded/unloaded in the allotted dwell-time, and boats get late– but usually not more than 20-30 min by the end of the day on a busy June weekend. “Better a late boat than no boat” has been the mantra.
The real problem this spring is lack of boats– WSF is out of spare boats. So when the 144-car Samish had to go in for service for three months, the substitute was a smaller boat– 90-car Sealth for 7 weeks, then the 124-car Chelan for the next four weeks. That is a loss of thousands of spaces a week, compounding the already stressed schedule. Friday Harbor felt most of the capacity reduction, but the “extra” afternoon sailing to Orcas on Thursday-Friday was shifted to Friday Harbor to make up some of the shortfall. But that adds another 30 minutes or so to an already-tight sailing, which makes that boat late on those days. (Samish was warranty work– fire mains– but the builder doesn’t offer loaners).
There is another factor: Because we have four boats serving six terminals, the schedules for the various islands are necessarily intertwined with boats often arriving at the same terminal only 10-15 minutes apart. When one boat gets 20 min late, the next boat also becomes late. “Lateness is infectious,” someone recently said.
And the clear winner of this season’s late-boat award is the Elwha. This is no surprise to Orcaas riders because Elwha does four of the runs to/from Orcas and Shaw, plus one Sidney run. (In summer, the smaller Chelan does two Sidney runs a day– plus an early Lopez sailing– leaving the mainland boats to do the mainland traffic).
The Elwha has gotten so far behind recently that she has nearly lapped itself on a few occasions– being so late that its 6:30 p.m. sailing runs into the late 8:55 p.m. sailing. When this happens it either just runs hours late, or a sailing gets canceled if everyone will fit onto the one sailing.
So why is the Elwha such a late-boat problem? That is a mystery that we are exploring with WSF. They have reduced speed crossing Haro Straits on the Sidney run to reduce noise for the orca, but that is a relatively short part of the trip and a small effect on the schedule. The vexing part is that some days Elwha runs at normal speeds (16 kts) and stays more-or-less on schedule (given the late-spring traffic). On other days she runs 2-3 knots slower and is an hour late getting back from Sidney, throwing the afternoon sailings into disarray.
Why not adjust the schedule? There is no funding to add crew hours, so the only option is to cut service– i.e. drop a sailing which would have a devastating effect on everyone.
Such a good look behind the curtain. Thanks.
Last night I had a reservation on the 855Pm sailing of the Elwha to Orcas. It departed Anacortes at approximately 1040PM. I travel the route weekly and get the schedule alerts via email. Late sailings are the norm, not the exception under the spring schedule. It is clear the vessels we have, operated in the fashion they are, cannot make the spring schedule.
If the WSF operates in its normal fashion the fall 2019 schedule will be identical to the spring schedule and the situation will continue unabated. Why can’t the WSF prepare a new shoulder season schedule that reflects the system’s ability to operate? That way those of us who make reservations don’t end up having to knowingly arrive 1-2 hours earlier than the sailing can actually occur? The idea of requiring arrival 30 minutes in advance of the scheduled sailing is great BUT when the demonstrated ability of the WSF to operate shows they can’t make the schedule then don’t bury your head in the sand, change the schedule to reflect what the system can do!
Drop the Sidney runs and help solve our local problems
Drop the Sidney run, and help improve local service!
On Friday June 21, my son had a reservation on the 6:30 ferry. He was late getting through the booth and lost the reservation even though the boat left 90 minutes late. As a back up because of the way the system works, he had a reservation on the 8:55 boat. We payed a $10 no-show fee as well as his arrival on Orcas being just before midnight with two small children ages 4 and 18 months. It tool his family a total of 8 eight hours including the drive from NE Seattle. We need another boat. Why does the Vashon Island service have 21 departures and arrivals per day with what I understand to be only partially full boats?
In the last several weeks we’ve gone off island twice. The 2nd ferry of the morning leaving Orcas has been over 1/2 hour late leaving….. That’s kind of crazy.
Then the 3:40 ferry from Anacortes to Orcas has been 2 hours late leaving…. That’s even crazier.
I understand this situation is the norm and not the exception. So to keep our reservation, why do we have to arrive 30 minutes prior to a schedule that EVERYONE KNOWS will not be met?
I don’t find fault with the ferry crews, they are doing the best they can.
However ferry management is looking very incompetent by not revising the published schedule to reflect reality. Why are they inconveniencing hundreds of people every day?
FERRY MANAGEMENT: Do your job and publish a revised ferry schedule that we your customers can actually rely on and plan our activities around.
YOU WOULD NOT WANT TO BE TREATED THE WAY YOU ARE TREATING YOUR CUSTOMERS.
See the article in the sounder explaining so much of what’s going on. All situations are fairly understandable. However, I wish the ferry system would take better advantage of technology and inform people in real time of these delays so we can get back our time instead of rushing etc to make 30 min deadlines only to sit and wait for hours. I can get live updates in every airline on the planet… why is it hard to get better information on a few slow moving boats?
I’m very aware of the published factual and theoretical reasons for the ferries bring chronically late.
My point is that there is no excuse for FERRY MANAGEMENT to not revise the schedule when that is needed. They should develop and publish the criteria for which a revised schedule will be triggered.
Then if a set of conditions is going to adversely affect the standard schedule for more than a few days, causing ferries to be chronically late, and then later and later as a day goes on, that should be the published trigger to implement the revised schedule, to include prominently posting it on their website, and notifying all the customers affected via email.
This procedure is not rocket science, and as time goes on and knowledge gained, the details can be adjusted to make it even more beneficial.
In addition, the FerryWatch columnar screen currently becomes worthless wherever ferries are late. Just changing the color to red does not really give the customer a good picture of what to expect, because the original schedule is lost to view. Columns should always show the original schedule of departure and arrival, and columns should be added to show the revised departure and arrival times. In addition, a line should be added directly beneath a specific vessel’s line to show the same information for the next trip leg for that vessel. This level of information explains the situation much more clearly to all involved.
FERRY MANAGEMENT is supposed to think and act proactively, being creative in their problem solving. I’m not the only customer wondering if that is occurring to the level required for this vital transportation service, and if not why not.