Mississippi Shipyard Bid Comes in at $31.4 Million for New Vineyard Ferry

By IAN FEIN

Steamship Authority engineers opened bids for the Islander replacement ferry on Wednesday and found that the lowest qualifying bid was $31.4 million - 25 per cent higher than their top estimate.

SSA management had projected that the new ferry would cost between $22 million and $25 million. This week the actual price tag climbed to at least $31.4 million, as bid by the VT Halter Marine shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss.

The only other acceptable bid, from a shipyard in Wisconsin, came in at $46.7 million.

The boat line received two other bids - one for $27.2 million and one for $29.6 million - but neither bidder met the state-mandated bonding requirements.

Board chairman and Barnstable governor Robert O'Brien learned about the bids on Wednesday while attending a ferry conference in Florida with SSA interim general manager Wayne Lamson. Mr. O'Brien said yesterday that both he and Mr. Lamson were disappointed, but not surprised by the bids.

No one at the SSA said they felt any sticker shock and maintained that they expected the price to skyrocket with the rising cost of steel - which has more than doubled in the last six months.

"It's not surprising," SSA port council chairman Marc Hanover said yesterday. "I was hoping it would be less, but everything that has to do with steel has been going crazy recently, so I understand. It's all the war demand."

Despite the cost for the new ferry, Vineyard SSA governor Kathryn A. Roessel remained enthusiastic about the project that was designed entirely on her watch. Ms. Roessel recently called the ferry project "the most time-consuming, worrisome and awe-inspiring responsibility." She had planned to fly to Mississippi with SSA engineers to inspect the shipyard this week, but decided to wait until the contract is awarded.

"If everything checks out, it looks like the boat will get built in Mississippi," Ms. Roessel said Wednesday. "I'm just holding my breath until the board makes its decision."

Boat line governors likely will decide whether to award the contract at their monthly meeting in Woods Hole on Nov. 23. If the project goes forward as planned, delivery of the new ferry is expected by April 2006.

Mr. Hanover said he is confident the board will approve the $31.4 million ferry.

"This is not a luxury item here; it's something we need, and the SSA can certainly afford it," Mr. Hanover said. "We've got a 50-year-old boat [in the Islander], and we've waited probably 10 years longer than we should have to replace it. We're not at a point where we can wait any longer. I'm sure the prices aren't going to go down."

SSA director of engineering Carl Walker and special projects manager Ed Jackson flew to Mississippi yesterday, where they will conduct a careful evaluation of the shipyard and review the bid estimate to make sure that all aspects of the project have been covered.

If problems crop up, the $46.7 million offer from Wisconsin would become the official low bid.

"I think at that point the board would have to revisit the design and redo the whole thing," Mr. Hanover said. "Obviously this [price of $31.4 million] is already a stretch."

On Wednesday, there was some question about the qualifying low bid. Mr. Lamson and Mr. O'Brien were told that SSA general counsel Steven Sayers had some reservations about it.

But Mr. Walker told the Gazette that he is familiar with the Mississippi shipyard, and he said he expects this week's trip will be mostly a formality.

"It's a yard that's been around a long time, and has done other large projects," Mr. Walker said on Wednesday. "They're one of the bigger players among second-tier shipyards."

Ms. Roessel was openly optimistic about the shipyard, which is located on the southern coast of Mississippi. She said the new ferry will likely come to its new home through the Gulf of Mexico.

"I'm delighted that we have a solid bid within a reasonable price range from one of the yards that our engineers said they would be thrilled to work with," Ms. Roessel said. "It would have been nice to have had more of a selection, but, look, you only need one."

In 1992, the boat line received seven bids to build the ferry Martha's Vineyard. A shipyard in Jacksonville, Fla., won the contract with the low bid of $8.7 million.

Mr. Hanover said he thought the Islander replacement should have been modeled after the Martha's Vineyard. Much of the new design was discussed before he joined the SSA port council, but Mr. Hanover said he believes that many of the features slated for the new double-ended ferry are responsible for its high price.

"Passengers, captains, everybody likes the Martha's Vineyard," Mr. Hanover said yesterday. "I think we should have just built another one. We could have saved a lot of money and standardized our fleet. In my personal opinion, this is not a correct way to run a company. But as long as people persist and want more, we're going to pay for it. All this extra stuff adds cost."

Ms. Roessel also attributed part of the ferry's increased price to the complicated design, but she said the design reflects the Vineyard's wishes.

"We started this process two years ago, and we decided there were a lot of things we needed," she said.

Prepared by Elliott A. Design Group of Seattle, Wash., the design calls for a 250-foot double-ended ferry with the capacity to carry 1,200 passengers and 76 cars, including 16 on hydraulic lift decks. The ferry will boast two pilot houses and two elevators, and will be completely accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ferry's top speed will be about 16 knots.

The 200-foot Islander, which has plied the waters between Woods Hole and the Vineyard for the last half-century, carries 50 cars and makes about 11 knots. She was built at a cost of $687,510 in 1950.

SSA management plans to keep the Islander and use her as a substitute ferry while other ferries are in drydock for maintenance.

In a May 2000 Gazette article celebrating the Islander's 50th birthday, engineer Steve Broderick said: "This boat could run another 10 or 15 years, and it's not that it couldn't go more. This boat would run forever."