Staten Island Ferry Captain Says Boats Are "Sh*tty," Dangerous

A Staten Island Ferry captain has told the New York Post that the eight vessels in the fleet are in a state of disrepair, and pose a danger to the 60 million passengers who use the service each year. "Captains are concerned a big one is coming because of how unreliable the boats are," the anonymous ferry captain said. “I don’t understand how the Coast Guard allows these boats to go out sometimes. If this were a private company, the Coast Guard would be all over them."

The captain claims that the batteries in the boats, called phase cells, frequently short out. When that happens, the captain is unable to slow or properly maneuver the boat while it's being docked.

“These [phase cells] tend to fail, and when they fail, it shuts down a drive,” the skipper said. “If you lose a drive, power is reduced, so if you go to slow down, you don’t know if it’s going to slow down or if it’s just going to take longer. We’re supposed to get the same response every time, but you don’t know.”

The ferries have experienced eight crashes in the last eleven years. In 2010, 35 passengers were injured when the boat slammed into the Staten Island terminal. A federal investigation ruled that the cause was an electrical malfunction. In 2003, eleven people were killed and dozens more injured when a ferry crashed into the same terminal. The captain of that ferry had taken painkillers and passed out at the wheel. He was later convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to prison.

The anonymous captain claims that the newest ferries, the Guy Molinari, the John Marchi and the Spirit of America, are the boats most prone to failure. The fleet's most reliable boat, according to the captain, is the John F. Kennedy, commissioned in 1965.

A DOT spokeswoman told the paper that the Coast Guard had inspected and certified the entire fleet, and said that some of the boats are being repaired to prevent electrical failure:

While the Molinari class is fitted with four drives on each vessel, they can safely operate on one drive…DOT initiated a project to upgrade the drives some time ago, and that project is well underway. The Spirit of America was the first vessel to be retrofitted. The other two vessels will be similarly retrofitted during this upcoming year.

The captain seems unconvinced: “They know these boats are s--tty. The bosses are trying to do the best they can, and there are limitations.”