operator profile
also added two new vessels, one in 2005 and the other in 2007. They were built at Thomas Marine and Curtis Marine respectively, both based on Long Island.
The water taxi fleet comprises vessels from a 6m outboard skiff to an 11m, 40-passenger ferry. It is a combination of an on-demand and scheduled service, which runs from point to point around the island. Two or three vessels usually run during the day, rising to eight vessels at night. Mr Mooney said, “The biggest challenge with this service is to get the right blend of vessels. We only need small boats during the day because we are not moving a lot of people but at night we are collecting people who have been out for the evening, so we need bigger equipment. It took a little while to figure out the staffing and equipment requirements. We moved from an on-demand to a scheduled service during peak periods because we had vessels running all over the place and it wasn’t very efficient.”
The water taxi service is vital to the island as
there are no cars or roads there. Residents and visitors cannot travel directly from one beach to another without these vessels. Instead, bicycles and wagons are used for short trips within the towns and Fire Island Ferries caters for these with wagon parks at some terminals. To mitigate the impact of high fuel prices, Fire Island Ferries has slowed its vessels by about a knot. It has also employed more deckhands to improve turnaround times so schedules remain unaffected.
“It is cheaper to employ more people on the dock to help unload the passengers than it is to make that time up on the water,” said Mr Mooney. The company finds it easy to recruit crew and
The water taxi service transports passengers laterally around Fire Island
32 I Passenger Ship Technology I Spring 2012
receives many applications every spring, ready for peak season. “Most of the hiring we do is of family members of people who work here,” Mr Mooney said. The firm allows crew to progress via in-house training programmes and on the job experience. “All of our captains started out as 16-year-old deckhands throwing lines,” he added. The captains actually perform most of the vessel maintenance during the off season in a travelift at the company’s Bay Shore headquarters. Fire Island Ferries employs 23 full-time staff. An additional 150 people join the ferry side of the enterprise for the summer season, with 40 to 50 extra for the water taxis. “The kids love working on the boats; you see a lot of smiles down here during the summer,” said Mr Mooney. As for the future, Mr Mooney may be looking to diversify. “We have a limited opportunity here because of the seasonality of the business so we are aiming to branch out into different parts of the country. Of course we want to keep improving our customer service levels but I think our fleet is just about where it should be now,” he concluded. PST
www.passengership.info
Deckhands are employed to reduce turnaround time
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