SEATTLE — Plans to restore full ferry service to the routes between Fauntleroy, Vashon and Southworth and Seattle and Bremerton, have been pushed into next year, a blow to the communities that previously had been told sailings would begin returning to normal this year.
Behind the delay is the now-familiar issue of staffing, as well as the degrading state of the fleet’s ships.
“Recent unexpected retirements, resignations and protected leaves of absence have caused attrition to outpace our recruiting and training efforts, especially among licensed vessel crews,” reads the ferry system’s weekly newsletter, sent last week.
Residents who live on the triangle route, as the Fauntleroy departure is known, were told earlier this year that Washington State Ferries would add a third boat to the three-stop rotation in April, up from the two the triangle has operated on for much of the last several years. Bremerton, which has been reduced to one boat, was scheduled to add a second boat in October.
The ferry system plans to add an occasional third boat to the triangle route as crew and ships are available. Those boats will not show up on the schedule, but instead serve as a release valve if and when traffic backs up.
On the Bremerton passage, Washington State Ferries has kicked over funding to Kitsap Transit to add extra foot ferry crossings to and from Seattle, including on the weekends.
The shortage of maritime crew has been brewing for years as huge portions of the workforce approached retirement age. That wave was accelerated by the pandemic as workers who may have gone on leave opted for an early exit. The governor’s mandate that all workers be vaccinated likely added to the shortage as well.
But while the state ferry system has been recruiting and adding new workers, it has struggled to get those people trained up in time.
As of April 1, the ferry system was 126 people short of its target staffing level of 1,148, according to a presentation to community feedback groups from the department. Every position, from the engine room up the pilothouse, is below where the department would like to be.
Most significantly, the more than 30 person shortage among captains and mates has been particularly challenging to plug, as it takes years of work before they’re qualified to assume those roles.
“This isn’t a huge surprise to folks, but we’re struggling still to get our hiring numbers up and get people trained and get them on the routes,” said ferries spokesperson Ian Sterling.
The ferries officially switched to “alternative schedules” on many routes in 2020 as the crew shortages mounted, to make the sailings less frequent but more predictable. In the years since, the department has slowly been declaring certain routes fully restored, meaning they have the typical number of boats 95% of the time, beginning with the San Juan Islands, Bainbridge Island, Mukilteo and Edmonds.
Even with these alternative arrangements, the boats are falling short of the system’s reliability target of 99%. In fact, 2023 has seen a decline in reliability, down to 97%. The San Juans, Edmonds and Coupeville boats have been the least reliable.
Compounding the issue is the state of the fleet. Between vessels in operation and those docked for regular maintenance, there are no boats to spare, meaning when one breaks down — or drifts onto a beach — WSF may struggle to replace it.
Modernizing the fleet is a long-term problem, said Sterling. In the short term, the crew shortages mean “that 99% reliability rate is probably gone for the foreseeable future.”
