NOVEMBER 21, 2016—A six-month pilot project connecting St. Petersburg and Tampa, FL, was recently launched by HMS Ferries, Inc. The new “Cross Bay Ferry,” which is designed to demonstrate water transportation technology
OCTOBER 18, 2016 — Rolls-Royce is to supply its first automatic crossing system to Norwegian ferry company Fjord1. It will control two new double-ended battery ferries as they cross between Anda and Lote
OCTOBER 18, 2016 — Interferry is getting a new CEO. Mike Corrigan is to step down as President and CEO of BC Ferries on March 31 next and immediately take up the
“Legally, a ferry is the continuation or prolongation of a highway over a navigable stream.” This quote is from the first Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME), published in 1893. Given the impact of ferries upon society, it should come as no surprise that they have been a topic of interest to many naval architects for many years. The Pacific Northwest region of the United States contains a mix of islands, rivers, peninsulas and lakes. Salt water and fresh water transportation routes have been a critical part of the economic development of the region beginning with the native peoples and continuing today. Since the arrival of the first settlers in the 1850’s, power-driven ferries have been a common sight, linking the various communities through the movement of goods and people.
What is a double-ended ferry and why choose this configuration? A double-ended ferry is one where vehicles are loaded on and off both ends of the vessel and the direction of travel switches so the bow becomes the stern. The greatest argument for a double-ended ferry is when the route is short such as a river crossing. The time to maneuver the vessel so it can back in to the dock becomes a significant portion of the overall time between departures. The maneuvering time also consumes additional fuel and imposes the risk, however small, of any maneuver going awry. Another advantage is that the vessel will have the same handling characteristics every time it enters or departs a terminal. With its propulsion at each end, the double-ended ferry has excellent stopping power and superior maneuverability, especially if using an azimuthing or cycloidal propulsion system. This all contributes to safety, a critical factor for any ferry.
The origins of Elliott Bay Design Group (EBDG) go back to the late 1920’s with the establishment of W.C. Nickum & Sons. The earliest ferry projects were to modify the double-ended ferries from the San Francisco Bay area that were made superfluous by the bridge building activities there in the 1930s. Since that time EBDG has worked on a wide variety of vessel sizes and propulsion types, to suit routes ranging from short river crossings to 20 nautical mile transits of exposed water.
The typical ferry we have designed has a V hull amidships with a narrow, flat of bottom at baseline. The side shell flares outboard with one or two knuckles between the heavy guard at the deck edge and the bottom. This configuration produces surfaces that are fully developable which facilitates construction. Typically, the waterline beam is 80% of the maximum beam. This shape provides excellent reserve buoyancy for damage stability and adds waterplane area as the vessel heels, thus improving intact stability. Where there is a draft limit, we increase the width of the flat of bottom. At the ends the waterline shape typically narrows to a fine entrance. Because the waterline beam decreases more quickly than the beam at deck, the effect is to create substantial sponsons. These are located sufficiently far above the bow wave to avoid increased wetted surface as the bow wave increases with speed. The shape of these sponsons also needs to consider wave slamming in rough weather, so a compromise is sometimes required between calm water resistance and speed in waves. The lower part of the hull at the ends is fitted with a skeg to support the shaftline (with traditional shafting on centerline) and to support the hull in dry dock. The skeg shape and volume are critical to the shape of the bow wave, hence we carefully consider the section area shape, including skegs. In more recent projects we have seen greater emphasis on reducing hull resistance, especially for ferries that operate on route lengths of greater than 2 nautical miles. Over the 40 to 50 year life of a ferry, small reductions in drag can result in significant fuel savings, and of increasing importance, lower emissions. Through the use of computational fluid dynamics we can find a balance between low resistance and ease of construction.
The double-ended ferry lends itself to a wide variety of propulsion configurations. Historically, these have ranged from steam-driven, side paddlewheels to a cable ferry powered by horses on a treadmill. In more recent times, we have seen the diesel engine become the dominant power source with a variety of means of putting the power into the water. Clearly, there is no preferred approach that works for every ferry. As designers, we look for the machinery configuration that meets the owner’s performance requirements with the best balance between reliability, maintainability, fuel efficiency and operability. This search typically takes the form of a propulsion study where we work with the owner to establish weighting criteria for the various aspects of the propulsion system. Typically, an owner will have strong opinions on what equipment and what configuration works well for his operation.
We are also seeing more clients interested in different forms of propulsion to reduce their overall energy consumption and thus reduce their environmental footprint. Owners are willing to trade off the simplicity and reliability of traditional geared diesel propulsion for reduced energy consumption through use of hybrid propulsion with electric drives, batteries for energy storage, and smart control systems. We are also seeing increased interest in alternative fuels such as liquefied natural gas, biofuels, and even hydrogen.
This year EBDG developed a physics-based simulation tool to evaluate different propulsion technologies for different sizes of ferries operating on different types of routes. This tool calculates hull resistance, weights, fuel requirements, and hull characteristics in an iterative fashion until the basic parameters of weight and buoyancy are in balance. The outputs from the tool are estimates of capital and operating costs as well as carbon emissions. We can now work with ferry operators to assess the economics of using technology to reduce environmental impacts.
So, what has 50 years taught us? First is that there always will be opportunities to improve the art of double-ended ferry design. Some recent trends include:
Considered the “forgotten borough” by some New Yorkers, Staten Island is on the verge of making its presence known in the city that never sleeps. The borough is a 25-minute ferry ride from the lowest tip in Manhattan, the Staten Island Ferry terminal at Whitehall.
Staten Island’s plan for renewal includes a $1.2 billion investment that will see the construction of the New York Wheel at St. George—an impressive 630 ft tall observation wheel that will rival England’s infamous London Eye, and feature 36 pods with accommodations for 40 in each, on a 38 minute ride/revolution, giving passengers a spectacular view of New York Harbor. Alongside the New York Wheel, New York City’s first outlet mall, Empire Outlets, is currently being constructed at St. George. The mall will feature 350,000 square feet of retail, 100 different shops and a 190-room hotel. Both the New York Wheel and Empire Outlets are expected to be operational by 2018.
How will tourist, potential shoppers, and New Yorkers alike make their way to these new attractions? They’ll be taking the Staten Island Ferry of course. The fleet, currently comprised of nine ferries, carries 22 million passengers a year—second only to Washington State Ferries’ fleet which carries over 23 million passengers annually.
And come 2019, the Staten Island Ferry fleet will welcome a new class to its fleet—the Ollis Class ferries.
Designed by Seattle-based Elliott Bay Design Group, the Ollis Class will mix the new with a bit of the old, providing passengers with a faster, more efficient ride to help meet increased ridership demand.
Its design will give the 320 ft x 70 ft ferries a striking resemblance to the beloved John F. Kennedy—which was commissioned in 1965 and is one of the oldest ferries in the Staten Island Ferry fleet. The Kennedy is one of three-that will be retired once the new Ollis Class series is delivered—the S.I. Newhouse and Andrew J. Barberi, both commissioned in 1981 are the other two.
The new Ollis Class will be double-ended and have capacity for 4,500 passengers; and like the Kennedy, will feature plenty of open air space, enabling passengers to enjoy the harbor view. The ferries will be built to ABS class requirements and will be powered by Tier 4 EMD engines and Voith Schneider Propulsion Drives.
The first of the three ferries will be named in honor of U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Michael Ollis, a native Staten Islander who died while saving another soldier in Afghanistan. He was only 24 years old.
The Staff Sgt. Michael Ollis ferry is expected to begin operations in 2019, with vessels two and three following later in 2019 and 2020.
Building the Ollis Class
As we were going to press, yards were putting in their final bids for the ferry project.
Among the yards that have expressed interest in the Ollis Class—at least according to the 2015 Industry Day attendance—are Conrad Shipyard, Eastern Shipbuilding Group, Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding, and Vigor. All are builders of a variety of vessel types including ferries.
Conrad Shipyard—which has won a number of newbuild contracts this year — has had its share of ferry projects in the past, and is looking to keep the momentum going.
As Dan Conrad, Conrad Shipyard’s Senior Vice President and Director, explains, “Conrad Shipyard has a great track record on deliveries to the Puerto Rico Maritime Authority, the Texas Department of Transportation, the State of North Carolina and the Alaska Marine Highway, among others.” And he assures that his team is committed to pursuing the ferry market for years to come.
Most recently, Conrad’s Conrad Aluminum, Amelia, LA, yard delivered the M/V Woodshole to the Steamship Authority. The 235 ft x 64 ft ferry was designed by Elliott Bay Design Group and has capacity for 384 passengers, 55 automobiles or 10 eighteen-wheel tractor-trailers.
Eastern Shipbuilding Group is said to have the inside track on building the Ollis Class ferries, according to our sources. It would be quite a month for the Panama City, FL-based shipyard, which recently secured the lucrative contract to build the OPC for the U.S. Coast Guard.
Meanwhile, Fincantieri’s recent expansion is helping it position its Bay Shipbuilding yard for larger projects that can be produced and worked on, year-round. The three-acre expansion will pave the way for additional covered fabrication and erection facilities, an indoor paint and coating building, and outfitting shop that will enable FBS to increase its pursuit of ferry projects.
“This expansion allows us to increase our capacity and positions us to pursue a number of new construction markets, including large passenger ferries,” said FBS Vice President and General Manager Todd Thayse. “Our experience in building ferries and other complex passenger vessels dates back to our origins almost a hundred years ago, and includes the New York Staten Island Ferry now operating (the Guy V. Molinari). We have the people, the experience, the facilities, and the global resources of Fincantieri to ensure that we can tackle the most challenging construction projects.”
As for the shipbuilding powerhouse in the Northwest, Vigor, it’s currently working on six ferry projects at the moment, including the final two vessels in Washington State Ferries’ new 144-car Olympic Class.
“Vigor has deep expertise in the ferry market with successful, on-time and on-budget deliveries of car ferries, passenger only vessels and catamarans. Six ferries are currently under construction at our Washington and Alaska yards and we expect ferry construction to continue to be a focus in our business development efforts, leveraging our considerable experience,” said Corey Yraguen, Vigor Executive VP of Fabrication.
Just last month the Chimacum, the third in the series was christened at Vigor’s Harbor Island yard. The fourth vessel in the series, the Suquamish, is currently under construction and scheduled for completion in 2018, with operations set to begin in 2019.
The 144-car ferries are the result of a combined effort from a consortium of Northwest based companies, including Nichols Brothers Boat Builders, Freeland, WA, which has been in charge of building the superstructures for the144-car ferries.
In other Vigor ferry news, Vigor’s Ballard Facility (formerly Kvichak Marine) is building two 400 passenger ferries for the Water Emergency Transportation Authority of San Francisco (WETA). The Incat Crowther designed ferries will travel 27 knots and are scheduled for delivery Summer 2017.
And Vigor’s Ketchikan yard in Alaska has taken up the task of constructing the highly anticipated 280 ft Day Boat ferries for the Alaska Marine Highway System. The ferries, designed by Elliott Bay Design Group, are scheduled to be completed Fall 2018.
Vigor’s Executive VP of Business Development, Keith Whittemore, will be discussing Vigor’s ferry projects and more at the Marine Log Ferries Conference & Expo November 3 & 4, 2016, Seattle, WA. Attendees of the event will also have the chance to tour Vigor’s Harbor Island yard after the conference’s conclusion. Learn more at www.marinelog.com/events
Route Extension?
Staten Island Borough President, James Oddo sparked additional interest in the Staten Island Ferry system when he requested the New York City Department of Transportation explore the feasibility of extending the Staten Island Ferry’s route north of the Whitehall Terminal, possibly extending the service into midtown.
While the idea sounds great in theory, and will certainly foster a sense of “transit equality” for Staten Islanders who have a grueling commute (just ask our Editor-in-Chief, John Snyder), the route extension could prove problematic as there is currently no operating terminal in place in midtown, with the right infrastructure to handle such large vessels.
New York’s Ferry Boom
Of course, the Staten Island Ferry isn’t the only New York City ferry operation making waves. Operated by Hornblower NY, Citywide Ferry Service’s new fleet of ferries are currently under construction at Louisiana-based Metal Shark Boats and Alabama’s Horizon Shipbuilding. The contract catapults both yards into new markets—propelling Metal Shark into the commercial market in a very big way, and introducing Horizon to the ferry market.
A large portion of the Incat Crowther-designed ferries are expected to be delivered in time for Citywide Ferry Service’s launch Summer 2017. The service, according to the New York City Economic Development Corporation is projected to make 4.6 million trips annually.
The 85 ft ferries will have capacity for 150 passengers, as well as space for bikes, strollers and wheelchairs. The Citywide Ferry Service is expected to add five new routes on the East River.
Meanwhile, another well-known ferry operator in New York harbor is upping its stake in the market. Seastreak says its “raising the bar in fast passenger ferry service” with the addition of a new, high-speed, 600-passenger, catamaran in 2017. The ferry will be the highest passenger capacity USCG K-class high speed ferry in the U.S.
The addition of the new ferry will help Seastreak meet growing passenger demand on the New Jersey to New York route.
Designed by Incat Crowther, the ferry, the first in Seastreak’s new Commodore class, will be 147 ft 8 in x 39 ft 5 in. The vessel was designed to provide Seastreak with an operational advantage. The ferry’s boarding arrangement will include large forward and aft side gates as well as an adjustable bow ramp. This will help facilitate turnaround times at terminals.
The first vessel in the series will be built at Gulf Craft Shipyard, Franklin, LA. Construction is to be completed by 3rd quarter 2017. Meanwhile, Seastreak expects a keel to be laid for a second Commodore class vessel before the end of 2016.
The Commodore Class ferry will be powered by four MTU 12V4000 M64 EPA Tier III main engines, each delivering 1,875 hp at 1,800 rev/min and driving Rolls-Royce KaMeWa 63S4 waterjets. The vessel will also feature LED lighting and an advance energy efficient HVAC system.
The ferry’s main deck will hold 234- passengers; mid deck will seat 271 passengers inside and 52 passengers outside; and the third deck features 160 exterior seats as well as the vessel’s wheelhouse.
Seastreak is also initiating the upgrades and repowering of several members of its current operating fleet. First one up will be the Seastreak New York, which is expected to enter into drydock this coming winter. At press time, the bids were out to multiple yards. The repowering project is expected to be completed by the end of the 1st quarter 2017.
Florida gets in the game
New York isn’t the only city getting its ferry action on. This month, service officially begins on the Cross-Bay Ferry system—connecting St. Petersburg and Tampa, Fl. The service is part of a pilot project intended to introduce residents and visitors to water transit services in the area.
The route will be operated by the 98 ft twin-hull aluminum catamaran, Provincetown IV. The ferry was originally built for Bay State Cruise Company, Boston, MA, by Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding, the Duclos Corporation, Somerset, MA. Designed by Incat Crowther, the 149-passenger ferry can operate at a top speed of up to 30 knots on the 50 minute route.
“We only have one vessel, and one crew, so we cannot do everything, but we do mean to showcase this technology to a lot of people and test ferry service in a variety of ways and markets,” said Ed Turanchik, policy advisor for the project.
Organizers of the project are testing the service on a variety of different market segments including tourist and local commuters, and the entertainment and sports markets. Learn more about the project at CrossBayFerry.com.
VDOT accepts ferry bids
Last month, the Virginia Department of Transportation was accepting bids for a new 70-vehicle ferry based on a design by Alion Science. The boat would be a replacement for the VDOT’s oldest ferry, the Virginia, built in 1936. Construction on the steel-hull ferry is to start this fall with completion in 2018.
Gladding Hearn delivers high-speed ferry
Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding, the Duclos Corporation, recently delivered a new 493 –passenger, high-speed Incat Crowther designed ferry to Hy-Line Cruises, a division of Hyannis Harbor Tours, Inc., Hyannis, MA.
The all-aluminum ferry is 153.5 ft x 35.5 ft and is powered by four Cummins QSK60-M, EPA Tier 3 diesel engines each delivering 2,200 bhp at 1,800 rev/min. Each engine will power a Hamilton HM721 waterjet through a Twin Disc MG61500SC horizontally-offset gearbox.
Incat Crowther says the ferry represents an evolutionary step from its previous designs built by Gladding-Hearn. According to the designer, the capacity increase had to fit within docking constraints, enforcing upper limits on both the length and beam of the vessel. To meet the requirements, it moved the wheelhouse to a third deck, freeing up the front end of the second deck for VIP passengers.
The restructuring shifted boarding arrangements, with the addition of a middeck boarding door and both forward and aft stairways improving passenger flow and turnaround times, says Incat.
The ferry will provide year-round service between Hyannis and Nantucket Island. It will top speeds of over 34 knots when fully loaded at a deadweight of more than 64 tonnes, said Peter Duclos, President of Gladding-Hearn.
The new ferry is also outfitted with a Naiad Dynamic trim-tab, ride-control system to help improve passenger comfort and safety. The system’s motion sensor measures the relative movement of the vessel and transmits a signal to the hydraulic device to counter the boat’s actions through the waves.
Europe’s Ferry Market
The European ferry market remains in the forefront of technology. The continent that gave the world emission-free, battery operated ferries, will now give forth, the world’s largest hybrid ferry.
Just last month, Norway’s Color Line reported that it would order the largest hybrid ferry ever built. The ferry, which will feature batteries charged via green electricity from dedicated shore side facilities, or recharged on onboard via the ship’s generators, would double the capacity of the vessel it will replace.
Tentatively named the “Color Hybrid, the ferry will be 160 m long and have capacity for 2,000 passengers and up to 500 cars. The ferry is expected to be put into service on the Sandefjord, Norway to Stromstad, Sweden route in 2020.
And not to be outdone, Damen says its ready to launch its first composites-construction Water Bus. As we were going to press, the prototype was prepping to begin sea trials.
The Damen Water Bus is the first vessel for public transportation produced at Damen Shipyards, Antalya, Turkey. Its benefits are plentiful—the vessel, which features a slender hull, making it lighter than a traditional aluminum vessel, requires less fuel consumption, less maintenance, will suffer from no corrosion or fatigue problems. It can travel at speeds up to 21 knots and has capacity for 100 passengers.
Damen’s Design & Proposal Engineer, Fast Ferries, Marcel Elenbaas, explains that the Water Bus is built using high quality vacuum infusion technology that creates a “difficult to penetrate closed cell, epoxy sandwich structure.”
Damen says the vessel is ideal for highly congested urban areas, and is a simple and efficient way for using a city’s natural waterways system.
The Water Bus is equipped with two, forward facing, double-screw podded propulsion units—helping to reduce vibrations. Damen says the vessel can be easily adapted to customer specifications, and because of the nature of the composites’ production process, delivery to clients will be quick.
In the months following Hornblower’s selection by New York City as the operator of its new Citywide Ferry Service, speculation was rampant as to what shipyard or shipyards would be able to build the fleet of 19 ferries in less than a year’s time. Many of the traditional passenger-only ferry builders in the U.S. were fully booked or declined to tender an offer because of what one shipbuilder called “an impossible delivery schedule.”
When we broke the news in early July of the award of the boatbuilding contracts, the two Gulf Coast shipyards to emerge as the winners were Horizon Shipbuilding and Metal Shark Aluminum Boats. The selections caught many outside the marine industry by surprise because neither yard had built a passenger-only ferry to date.
One, Horizon Shipbuilding, is situated in Bayou La Batre, AL—the heart of the shrimp boat business. While the other, Metal Shark Aluminum Boats, is headquartered in Jeanerette, LA—known as “Sugar City” because of its local sugar cane crop and sugar processing mills.
While the selections might have raised some eyebrows among the general public, both yards have carved out impeccable reputations for meeting challenging production schedules for constructing boats and vessels in series for government and commercial customers. Both have a highly skilled, core workforce; both count the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard among their customers; and both are owned by confident, forward-thinking entrepreneurs.
Horizon Shipbuilding’s Travis Short
Travis Short, Owner and President of Horizon Shipbuilding, knows his shipyard can deliver. He points out that the shipyard built 40 vessels in a 20-month timeframe for a commercial offshore oil customer. Those boats, by the way, just so happen to be the same tonnage as the 149-passenger Citywide Ferry catamaran vessels.
He also cites a contract that Horizon Shipbuilding won to build ten 10,000-gallon-capacity oil barges after the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The barges were to be used in the cleanup in the Gulf and the shipyard had one month to deliver them.
“Our key people have been with us for a long time,” says Short. “They know how Horizon Shipbuilding operates. Building boats is what we do.”
The Gordhead Factor
A graduate of the University of Southern Alabama with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Short started Horizon Shipbuilding in 1997 with his father, Travis Sr. While Short is fully confident in the ability of his core workforce, five years ago he felt that they could be more productive. “We weren’t doing poorly,” says Short, “but we just weren’t getting any better.” Short wanted to make improvements in workflow, reporting and resource management. That’s where he got the idea for Gordhead management software.
“We wanted to start by giving access to more information,” says Short. “With Gordhead, we created a software platform that brings together all of the information.”
Gordhead is an app that can be used on your mobile device. By using a modular-based system, it syncs with existing enterprise resource planning, scheduling and timekeeping software to provide project transparency and promote collaboration between production managers and workers.
“It’s all about better communication,” says Short. He says the use of Gordhead by management has allowed Horizon Shipbuilding to share information throughout the day on projects and do away with daily production meetings. Shorts says that what often holds up any production process is that someone is waiting on an answer before he can proceed with his work. “Gordhead wipes that out. It raises the level of communication, allowing the time for decision-making to get shorter. It gets rid of bottlenecks.” The software also allows greater transparency for an owner to check on the status of the construction of his vessel.
Cameron Clark, VP and GM, Hornblower NY, cited the use of Gordhead as one of the factors in selecting Horizon Shipbuilding as one of the builders for the NY Citywide Ferry project. Clark says the use of the Gordhead management software will allow Hornblower to stay connected with the team on the ground 24/7 and ensure the project stays on schedule.
Located about three miles from Mobile Bay, Horizon’s facility is made up of a West Yard and Main Yard, with nine steel buildings for steel and aluminum fabrication and construction. The construction and outfitting of modules and vessels is mainly performed in two 175 ft x 50 ft buildings. Horizon Shipbuilding also uses a huge 660-ton Travelift for the transfer and launch of vessels.
The key piece of the fabrication process is the ALLtra Model PG14-12 Shape Cutting Machine, which is a CNC-controlled gantry designed for cutting complex shapes for sheet or plate materials. It is capable of producing parts at high speeds and close tolerances and was used to cut precise jig patterns, allowing for innovative ways of rapid hull construction for the ferries. The machine is easily configured for plasma or oxy/fuel shape cutting processes and can be customized for special applications. Horizon’s application utilizes the Hypertherm HPR260 plasma cutter controlled by the Burny 10 LCD shape cutting motion controller using MTC ProNest 8 nesting software.
The current workforce at the shipyard is about 300, with about 125 of those dedicated to the New York ferry project.
The NYC Ferry Design
Designed by Incat Crowther, the new catamaran ferries will be 85 feet 3 inches long, with a beam of 26 feet 3 inches, and draft of 3 feet 4 inches. The ferries will also feature plenty of charging stations for the connected crowd, concessions, Wi-Fi and a space for up to 19 bicycles on board.
Each vessel will use two 803-hp EPA-compliant Tier 3 Baudouin 6M26.3 P3 main engines to help reduce diesel emissions and noise. Incat Crowther’s innovative hull design will help limit wake and maximize fuel efficiency, and the ferries will primarily be built out of aluminum further increasing fuel efficiency.
Each boat is expected to carry at least 149 passengers (some could have higher capacities). The vessel’s main deck will have seating for 123 passengers plus space for four wheelchairs and four strollers. The upper deck will seating capacity for 42 passengers.
“We are going to start out with a five-day-a-week schedule,” says Short, “and adjust if necessary. It is an ambitious schedule, but we’ll start delivering boats on their own bottoms starting in the early spring and finishing in the late spring.
“While these are the first catamaran ferries we’ve built,” he continues, “they are not the first passenger boats. We’ve delivered high-speed crewboats for Mexico and West Africa.”
Of course, the New York ferries aren’t the only game in town. Horizon also has five repair jobs in the yard, including river inland towboats, a research vessel, and 130 ft yacht.
It is also building two 100 ft x 40 ft escort tugs for McAllister Towing, New York, NY. Based on a design by Jensen Maritime, Seattle, WA, the steel-hulled tugs will be ABS classed and fitted with Caterpillar 3516E Tier 4-compliant main engines, driving Schottel SRP4000FP propulsion units. The tugs are to be delivered in early 2017.
Bold Plan, Bold Choice
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to create the citywide ferry service—at a cost of $325 million—is a bold reimagining of the city’s future public transportation. The Mayor thinks that the ferry service when up and running would carry an estimated 4.5 million passengers in a year. All of the new ferries would be in service by mid-2017. At $2.75 per ride the ferry service would be affordable for the average New Yorker. The new citywide ferry service would be a crowning achievement for the Mayor just months before he stands for reelection in the fall of 2017.
Metal Shark’s Chris Allard
The choice of Metal Shark Aluminum Boats as the other shipyard to build the new ferries is a bold one, too. Metal Shark is owned by Chris Allard and Jimmy Gravois. A Long Island native, Allard joined American Marine Holdings after graduating from the prestigious Webb Institute. He later partnered with Gravois, owner of Gravois Aluminum Boats, to acquire Metal Shark in 2006.
Ten years later, Metal Shark has emerged as a premier builder of aluminum military craft for all of the branches of the U.S. military—Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force and the Army.
All of those boats are built at what Allard calls the Jeanerette “boat production facility” because it delivers almost a vessel on a daily basis. Back in 2011, Metal Shark grabbed headlines when it was awarded the contract to replace the U.S. Coast Guard’s aging Response Boat-Small (RB-S) fleet. The nearly $200 million contract of over 470 boats, was the largest of its kind ever awarded by the Coast Guard.
In 2014, Metal Shark took the next step in its growth with the acquisition of a 25-acre waterfront tract in Franklin, LA, a short drive from the company’s headquarters in Jeanerette. Located on the Charenton Canal, the Franklin yard, says, Allard, is designed for shipbuilding and provides direct access to the Gulf of Mexico. Recent deliveries include 90- and 75-foot catamarans and 60- and 50-foot catamarans. The Franklin yard has also built some 45-foot patrol boats.
Allard sees the New York City ferry contract as a springboard into growth into the commercial vessel market. “We’ve been primarily known as a military and government contractor,” says Allard. “This contract is part of a major company diversification.” In the coming months, Allard expects to announce a number of commercial contracts to build its largest vessels yet. The Franklin facility has enough capacity to build multiple vessels of 200 feet in length.
Engineering company at heart
“We are really an engineering company at heart,” says Allard. It says the company leverages technology, such as robotics, CNC cutting, bending, CAD software systems to stay focused on production efficiencies, controlling costs and producing quality products for the customer. These same engineering processes can be seen in the sheet metal, automotive, and aeronautical industries.
As for the New York City ferry contract, Allard says Metal Shark secured the business “the good, old fashioned way.” Allard says, “We’ve been working with Hornblower for more than two and a half years providing them the information and the tools they needed to secure the contract. We also showed them how we could replicate our building processes to construct the ferries.”
Metal Shark currently has about 200 workers between its two shipyards and might ramp up “a little,” says Allard. The company will also be able to shift some of the labor pool from one facility to the other based on project demand.
The Franklin yard is also benefitting from a Small Shipyard Grant from the U.S. Maritime Administration for $582,410, which will be used to acquire portable shelters and marine transporters.
“We were able to cut metal within 10 days of signing the contract,” he says. “We do most of our design work in-house with its naval architectural staff—but for the New York City ferry project, the design is owner-furnished from Hornblower. We are working on the same design as Horizon Shipbuilding in order to make the boats as absolutely identical as possible.”
According to Allard, Metal Shark (and Incat) are participating in a limited usage of Gordhead at Hornblower’s request for sending and receiving technical clarifications during the design phase of the project in order to minimize differences in interpretation of design clarifications by the two builders. He says that Metal Shark has its own advanced software, tools and processes for project management, engineering planning, production coordination and customer communications.
SEPTEMBER 5, 2016—Deltamarin Ltd is to provide Finnish shipbuilder Rauma Marine Constructions Oy(RMC) shipyard with design services for the RoPax ferry recently ordered by Denmark’s Mols-Linien A/S (see earlier story). The vessel
AUGUST 15, 2016 —MF Berlin, the first of two new battery-hybrid passenger and freight ferries is now in service on Scandlines’ Gedser-Rostock route between Denmark and Germany. Sister vessel MF Copenhagen is
Obligation, vigilance, and perseverance are among the professional qualities of the merchant mariner. Whether one attends a maritime academy, as I did, or comes up through the hawsepipe, in seagoing service mariners learn and practice the ethos of care to crew, ship, and the environment. Mariners are supposed to display those qualities in spite of cold, or rain, or discomfort–one of my strongest memories of the academy is being on lookout, freezing, wearing all my jackets. Mariners are supposed to be ready, to be watchful, to put together skills and equipment and to balance paradox and contradiction to make a successful voyage.
The New York Harbor community combined all these unique attributes on 9/11, evacuating hundreds of thousands of commuters and residents of Lower Manhattan to Staten Island, to New Jersey, and elsewhere in New York City in an improvised fleet of boats: tugs, dinner boats, tour boats, private vessels. Over the course of those hours, boats made trip after trip across the harbor. Then, as the number of evacuees from Manhattan tapered off, the boatlift shifted to transporting responders and supplies to the island, an operation that continued for several days. They accomplished the largest water evacuation in history without planning, without practice—and without accidents.
What made this possible? To find out, my coauthor Tricia Wachtendorf and I talked with boat operators and waterfront workers, piecing together their stories for our book American Dunkirk: The Waterborne Evacuation of Manhattan on 9/11. Foremost was a spirit of service and a duty to rescue that is characteristic of the maritime community. Law and tradition require a mariner to come to the aid of a person at sea in danger of being lost. On 9/11 mariners widened the compass of their obligation to include the people who were queuing up at the shoreline.
The participants in this evacuation saw themselves as part of an active maritime community. Everyone knew everyone else, they said. They knew each others’ boats, and personnel were always moving from company to company, creating a strong network of acquaintance. Even though the commercial setting could sometimes be highly competitive, there were also habits of cooperation: any company might need help from any other in an emergency. It’s almost a rule in the disaster field that the planning process is more important than the plan itself. Responders have to become familiar with each others’ capacities, resources, and limitations. The years of interaction and familiarity were actually a planning process for urban disaster management, though they didn’t know it.
Mariners lead lives of paradox. GPS provides fabulous accuracy, but the prudent mariner is still reminded to check it by other means. Some mariners have attended disciplined and hierarchical academies where they live a regimented lifestyle while also learning Bridge Team Management, to adopt proper communications skills that short-circuit the intimidation of hierarchy. They operate in a complex web of maneuvering rules, which also contain a rule that prescribes that the rules should be broken when they’re not working. Often their information is ambiguous, as with weather, so they are sensitive to margins of error. In this complex milieu, mariners are always making judgments about safety, speed, and efficiency. These judgments abounded on 9/11.
They carried passengers on boats not certified for that. In some cases, they exceeded boats’ passenger capacity. Boat operators said they didn’t do this recklessly, but looked at the boat’s performance, the distribution of additional weight, and the demands of the immediate crisis. Certainly the usual margin of safety was narrowed in this event both with respect to capacity and to navigation. In some areas around the harbor the dust was so thick that visibility was zero, but they continued on. “Radar, don’t fail me now!” recalled one captain thinking as he approached the entrance to North Cove. Sometimes, boat captains took on bystanders to assist in embarking evacuees or in handling lines. Boats used piers they were unaccustomed to, or that weren’t designed for passengers, and had to jury-rig gangways because of the different heights. The captains were careful, using their experience and judgment to know how much they could push the boundary of risk. Other rules were slackened. A Coast Guard officer authorized fueling without permits. Two harbor pilots took golf carts to move supplies. The main thing was that when they pushed the limits, they were thoughtful, weighing the risk as experience has taught them.
Sometimes older technologies are more adaptable than modern ones. A break-bulk ship can work cargo anywhere, but a container ship, not so much. Efficiency sometimes erases adaptability, but disasters remind us of the importance of older tools and technologies, such as radio. Certainly there are tools to help the modern disaster manager: satellite photography, robotics, drones. But a lot of disaster management is old-fashioned work: moving things and people, staging equipment, organizing activities, talking on the phone. Probably the exemplar of this principle during 9/11 was the John J. Harvey, a retired fireboat that had been bought and restored by a group of enthusiasts. On the morning of September 11, the group boarded the Harvey and got underway first just to see what was happening, then they moved some evacuees, but then the Harvey’s real talent became obvious: the capacity to pump a lot of water. That capacity, left over from now-ancient days of wooden piers and warehouses and stacked-up flammable cargoes, was just what was needed to charge the fire hoses now substituting for the destroyed infrastructure at Ground Zero. Even in normal times, the Harvey demonstrated the qualities of prudence and vigilance. One of her owners, a retired fireboat captain, insisted they always have some usable firehose on hand, just in case.
Of course, there were challenges. The era of deep-draft commercial maritime use of much of Lower Manhattan has long since past. The waterfront had few good locations for the boats to embark passengers and lacked critical shoreside infrastructure, such as bollards or cleats, to tie boats to. Meanwhile, the smooth stone surface of the Battery Park seawall threatened to damage boats that were coming alongside. The sailboat Ventura, for example, could not tie up there because of being buffeted against the wall. “We’re going to have a boat that’s full of matchsticks and it’s going to sink,” said the captain. Even the durable Harvey got “quite a battering.” Some boats tied up to trees to hold steady for taking on evacuees. In other instances there was too much infrastructure, some of it in the form of fences and ornamental ironwork. Several participants in the evacuation reported simply cutting down the fences to clear a path for the evacuees.
The boat operations demonstrate what we have seen in many disasters: the importance of improvised, unscripted activities, and the importance of new groups, organizations, and networks. In spite of a widespread desire to “command and control,” that is not possible in an unfolding community-wide disaster. Most people are rescued by bystanders, for example, often well before formal responders arrive, which shows that there is always a grassroots dimension to disaster management. 9/11 maritime activities took place all around New York Harbor. No one could have full “command” of these activities, where needs were being identified and handled in an organic way through a growing network. The Coast Guard took a coordinating but not a commanding role. They wisely made no effort to take over the entire operation, recognizing that they needed to let it unfold. And there would be no way to command activities that were happening at Liberty Landing, or at Weehawken, or at Highlands, a 17-mile transit from Manhattan, where they were all dealing with their own needs of sorting passengers, decontaminating people, and offering comfort and bottles of water.
The 9/11 boat operations offer some insights for urban disaster management and resilience, organizations, and communities. Key features of resilience are redundancy, substitutability, and mobility. Some vessels can operate even if others are out of service. Boats are a mobile resource, easily moved around as needed. If some facilities are damaged, others may be available or can be improvised on short notice. Some vessels of more rugged construction served as floating piers, so that other vessels of lighter design would not be damaged against the seawall. Vessels are connected by VHF radio—nearly always available– and vessel movements are organized not by a flowchart or a rigid command structure but rather by a nautical chart and the mariners’ operational knowledge of that area: its laws, regulations, and customs. Public officials in waterfront cities should look closely at the different transport modes available. In particular, emergency managers and urban planners and engineers should work much more closely together to identify needs and resources.
That’s the key. People, groups, and communities share what they know; identify what they need; and connect to others. The maritime operations on 9/11 are an example of principles that extend to other settings. In situations as diverse as U.S. wildfires to the Fukushima tsunami and nuclear plant catastrophe, people have built new networks and improvised with whatever is available. A resilient disaster response depends on deep knowledge of a place, memory, gathering resources, and finding substitutes. These are the pieces that people can assemble creatively and strategically to manage a disaster.
You can view a list of the vessels and operators that lent their support on 9/11 at www.fireboat.org/911_rescue_boats.php
James Kendra is a graduate of Massachusetts Maritime Academy and a former merchant marine officer. He is Director of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware.
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