Unionised ferry workers have hit out at Marine and Ports director Richard Russell claiming that mechanical issues with the ferries, rather than staff lateness, have accounted for an unreliable service.

Senior pilot and president of the Bermuda Industrial Union’s Marine and Ports division Sinclair Samuels said that claims made by Mr Russell in this newspaper earlier in the week that staff time keeping was affecting ferry times were disingenuous claiming that while there were some issues with staff turning up late — it had no effect on whether the ferries ran on time as staff were required to turn up to work some 40 minutes before actual departure time.

He told The Royal Gazette: “Lateness of staff is not an issue for the vessels arriving late. Staff make 6am for the first ferry to depart at 6.40am. There is always enough crew to man the vessel in the morning.

“The main issue with the lateness of the ferry is that director Lt Commander Russell switched from the faster vessel — the JL Cecil Smith at 30 knots with six engines, to the Serenity at 22 knots with three engines and combined the two runs to cut fuel costs.

“It has only been recently that the ferries have been late. When they are more than a few minutes late, like 20 minutes late, that is because we are down there diligently trying to fix a boat that broke the night before — maybe it is full of water because it is leaking and we have to pump it out.”

He said that due to the mechanical issues with other vessels only two out of six fast ferries were in service. The Tempest that travels to Rockaway is supposed to operate with two generators, one to run the air conditioners and toilets and the other to run the rest of the vessel but has been operating with only one generator for the last year and a half, during which the vessel was mainly out of service.

“This gave ample time for it to have been replaced,” said Mr Samuels. “This vessel is being put into service under the direction of the Director Lt Commander Russell as a means of cutting fuel costs, as he stated in the Joint Consultative Committee as opposed to using the JL Cecil Cmith — the larger vessel.”

This newspaper requested a list of arrival times to get an idea of the extent of lateness from Marine and Ports but were told the information was “not available” as “not every arrival time is recorded”.

Mr Samuels said that ferry workers had persistently advised management that the best solution for the ferry service would be to take the Millennium, intended as a temporary vessel he said is costing the department $200,000 per month, out of the water and to use the money to fix the existing fleet, a move that was written into the department’s mission statement. Now the department says the Millennium will continue to be in service until 2017, Mr Samuels said.

Staff shortages had also added a strain, he said, with the service having lost 20 members of staff within three years and at least five more scheduled to leave this year out of a full staff of about 70.

“Due to this, overtime in Marine and Ports has been extremely high and even higher since the Millenium arrived. The cost of $1.2 million vessel rental plus the wages of the deck crew which includes 15 hours overtime a week, fuelling accommodations and delivery cost has been coming out of our budget for the past three years. These monies would have gone a long way in getting the fleet back to full operation.”

As for staff lateness two mechanics were the main offenders according to Mr Samuels who said that Mr Russell’s solution was to allow them to start work later.

“These two members are key members of our mechanical staff. This also puts a strain on the vessels getting out on time if there are mechanical issues from the previous night, seeing as there is no cover for night shifts.”

“We would recommend that the public look at the audit reports that were given in 2012 and 2014 to see where the problems in Marine and Ports really lies.”