If the new schedule works, it will come as welcome news to passengers, whose complaints in recent months suggest that the decades-old problems have been coming to a head. Disappointed passengers say that often ferries don’t follow advertised schedules; that trips are not adequately spread out over the day; and that company representatives argue over customers at the terminals. They add that, upon arriving at their destination, they sometimes have to wait for a long time before disembarking.

Port officials and ferry operators alike admit to such problems, and agree that something needs to be done. But the underlying causes of the problems — and the solutions — are far from clear.

BVI Ports Authority officials tend to blame ferry operators, who, they say, refuse to stick to their schedules, and use questionable tactics to attract passengers.

Ferry operators retort that the BVI and USVI Ports Authorities don’t properly regulate the industry, leaving them to fend for themselves in an every-man-for-himself atmosphere. Some of them remain sceptical of the authorities’ recent efforts.

Meanwhile, passengers steam.

Passenger complaints

In a May 8 letter to the Beacon, regular VI visitor John Tysoe wrote about what he called a “chronicle of a quarter-century of frustration.

“Every time I tried to book a ticket on the ferry of my choice I was hassled by some different company the moment I stepped out of my taxi. Not once did the ferry on which I finally booked go where it said it was going,” Mr. Tysoe wrote, before concluding: “I don’t want to give the impression that I dislike the VI ferry companies. I abhor them. If there ever was a case for government control and stringently enforced regulation, this is it!”

In another letter published in the March 13 issue, Dean Greenaway said that the ferry he had taken from Road Town arrived at Charlotte Amalie at 8:03 a.m., but he had to wait until 8:36 a.m. to disembark. Meanwhile, another ferry arrived and unloaded its passengers first.

In this week’s issue, Stephan Carney complains that ferry trips are inconveniently scheduled. “I have a choice of two ferries departing within minutes of each other early in the morning, or a choice of another two ferries departing within minutes of each other around noon, but none at all when I want to go,” he wrote, before echoing Ms. Tysoe’s call for government intervention.

“It took the St. Martin government to sort out the Anguilla ferry mess, where boats would race each other into Marigot to try to get the passengers first, but after they implemented a sensible schedule, everyone benefited — operators and passengers alike.”

Government response

The proposed new schedule was drafted by a “joint working group,” which was formed in the spring and is made up of representatives from both territories’ ports authorities and other government officials.

The group was formed in part because the ferries are “responsible for the movement of hundreds of travelers on this international route on an annual basis; therefore, rectifying the scheduling conflict between competing carriers is a top priority,” Communications and Works Minister Julian Fraser said in a May 27 statement. “These scheduling conflicts have over the years been a sore point resulting in dangerous interaction between vessels and numerous complaints from persons using the service. Many attempts in the past to resolve these matters through discussions at various forums have been made, but they have all been marginally successful, to date.”

The statement also referred to “embarrassing exchanges at the terminals that have become all too common.”

The working group’s goal is “to improve ferry services between the two territories by revisiting the current schedules,” the statement said.

The group has since drafted the proposed new schedule. In the coming weeks — probably in early September — the group will meet in the USVI with ferry operators to show them the schedule and gather their input, according to Gene Creque, the BVIPA deputy managing director.

“Once that is done I think things can progress quite quickly,” Mr. Creque said Friday. “I would surmise within a matter of one or two weeks [after the meeting] we should be able to see it.”

USVI Ports Authority Executive Director Kenn Hopson said Thursday that his working committee hadn’t submitted the draft schedule to him yet, but he was expecting it in the coming days; he added that he hopes a new schedule will be finalised by the time the tourist season picks up in October.

Root of problems

But some ferry operators remain sceptical. Ira Smith, the Smith’s Ferry managing director, said Friday that he had not yet seen the draft schedule and officials had not given him a definite answer about whether he would be permitted to see it before the meeting. “There’s no way I’m going to sit down in the meeting to discuss a schedule I have not seen,” he said. “I’m going to go to the meeting whether they give it to me or no, but I don’t think the meeting will go any place.”

On Monday, Native Son president Frank Smith said he had not yet been contacted about the upcoming meeting, and echoed similar concerns. If he and other operators are allowed to see the schedule in advance and their comments are taken into consideration, he said, he won’t have a problem with the process.

But, he said, “I don’t want anything to be forced down my throat that might even lead to legal action.”

Mr. Smith added that his ferry company has been operating for more than 30 years.

“It isn’t right for the government to come in there and interfere with what you’ve established and put you in a position where you may not make money,” he said. An unfavourable schedule, he added, could put him “in a position where I have to re-advertise, and I have to spend money. The ports aren’t going to subsidise anything we do.”

Scheduling dilemma

Certainly, fixing the ferry services will require more than lip service on the part of the ports authorities.

At the heart of the current scheduling dilemma is a five-year-old dispute among three ferry companies that offer service between Road Town and Charlotte Amalie: Smith’s Ferry Services, Native Son Inc., and Caribbean Maritime Excursions.

Two operators — Ira and Frank Smith — say that departure schedules agreed upon in 1996 had all but resolved decades-old squabbles that had arisen in a business where operators compete heatedly for a limited number of passengers.

Those schedules worked in large part because they provided for a 30-minute separation between departure times at Road Town and St. Thomas, they said.

But, according to both operators, old problems resurfaced in 2003, when Bobby Hodge, the former president of Native Son, left the company and started Caribbean Maritime Excursions. The new company began offering a direct route from Road Town to St. Thomas via the Road Town Fast Ferry. (The other two companies’ ferries, by contrast, often stop in West End.)

Smiths’ arguments

The Smiths contend that Mr. Hodge’s ferries operate on a schedule that has disturbed the relative peace that they had worked hard to establish 12 years ago, in large part because it violates the 30-minute departure separation established by the former schedules.

“When you have boats leaving at about the same time they end up racing each other, endangering the lives of the passengers, and also of the equipment they operate,” Frank Smith said. “As a result of that, they said [in 1996 that] we’ll have a half hour between [departures].”

The two operators have said as much in several letters to the ports authorities and this territory’s ministry of communication and works. These letters: Question the validity of CME’s schedules; bemoan the damage that the operators say CME is unfairly causing to their own businesses; and beseech officials to re-institute the 30-minute separation between departure times.

But their complaints, they said, seem to have fallen on deaf ears.

RT Fast Ferry

Mr. Hodge, meanwhile, contends that his Road Town Fast Ferry operates on approved, legally-issued schedules and offers a much-needed direct service between the territories.

In fact, he said, he started his company in 2003 only after Smith’s and Native Son turned down requests by the Ports Authority board of directors to run a similar direct service, foregoing regular stops in West End.

“Their words [were], it is not profitable, and they don’t want to do it,” Mr. Hodge said.

(Ira Smith denied having turned down such requests, and Frank Smith said he doesn’t “recall anything like that.”)

Mr. Hodge contends that the Smiths’ gripes are largely sour grapes. The scheduling conflicts, he said, have arisen not as a result of his entrance into the market, but from unfair tactics designed to damage his business.

For example, he said, once he established his service, the other two companies started operating on an “illegal schedule,” offering more mid-afternoon departures from Road Town, and timing them to disrupt his own operation. (Ira Smith denied this allegation, and Frank Smith declined to respond to it.)

“When I got my loan from the bank the only reason that I was able to get it was because of the schedule that I had,” Mr. Hodge said. “So, I’m saying to just come and just start hustling and … go to Road Town, that’s unfair.”

Mr. Hodge insists that there are enough passengers to go around, but the other operators are unwilling to give him a chance.

His problems later were compounded, he said, when the USVI Ports Authority changed his St. Thomas departure schedule in a way that he said favoured the other operators and conflicted with the schedule he was operating out of Road Town.

The schedule

For their part, the Smiths said that they have no problem with CME entering the market, but they believe its boats should follow a schedule issued with their input and blessing.

“I think that one of the things is to remember that Smith’s Ferry and Native Son ferry were there for quite awhile and we had an approved schedule for the ports authority in the BVI and also from the USVI, and then Road Town Fast Ferry came,” Frank Smith said.

Ira Smith thinks CME’s Road Town departure schedule might have been improperly issued — if it was issued at all. Mr. Smith said he has never seen a signed copy of the schedule, despite repeated requests to the BVIPA, the communications and works ministry, and Mr. Hodge himself.

“I have never been able to get a copy,” Mr. Smith said. “When I asked the port the last time, they told me I don’t need it, I can go … and see what he has posted.”

A VI departure schedule must be approved by the communications and works minister before the BVIPA issues it, and Mr. Smith said he wonders if this step ever happened before CME was allowed to operate.

Schedule unavailable

Gene Creque, who was the BVIPA managing director in 2003, said in an April interview that he had issued a schedule to CME that year, with the approval of then-Minister of Communication and Works Julian Fraser.

However, in a July 10 interview at the BVIPA, both Mr. Creque, who is now PA deputy managing director, and Vincent O’Neal, the current managing director, declined to provide a copy of that schedule. The directors said that improvements on it are currently in progress, as stated in a May statement by GIS.

“This is the schedule that we are working on now,” Mr. O’Neal said. “There are some schedules that are official and some that are not. We can’t give you what we are working on now. … Once we come to an agreement of what we work out between USVI Ports Authority and us, then it goes to the minister [to approve]. Then it’s sanctioned.”

Once the new schedule is sanctioned, according to Mr. O’Neal, it will be available to the public.

No signed copy

This reporter’s attempts to obtain a signed Road Town departure schedule from Mr. Hodge and from the Ministry of Communications and Works also were unsuccessful.

Mr. Hodge, after agreeing during an interview in April to provide an official schedule, later brought a copy that was neither signed nor stamped with a seal. It appeared to be the other ferries’ master departure schedule from West End, with CME’s Road Town departure schedule included at the bottom of the page.

Mr. Hodge said that BVIPA officials had told him that it was the official schedule. (When shown the copy, Messrs. O’Neal and Creque both denied telling him this, and maintained that the copy was not the official schedule.)

Mr. Fraser, asked after a House of Assembly meeting on June 27 if he had approved a schedule for CME in 2003, said: “It’s not fair for you to ask me that question, about something that happened in 2003.”

The minister then directed this reporter to Myrna Hill-Ferdinand, his acting deputy permanent secretary, who, he said, could help obtain the requested schedule and other information.

Asked then if he meant to suggest that he couldn’t remember whether he had approved the schedule in 2003, Mr. Fraser replied: “I said it’s not fair for you to ask me a question like that. I didn’t say I didn’t remember, so don’t put that in the paper,” and exited the HOA chambers.

Several calls to Ms. Ferdinand were not returned.

To date, this reporter is unable to obtain a copy of a signed or stamped Road Town departure schedule that includes any departures by CME.

Red flag

To Ira Smith, the unavailability of the schedule raises a red flag. The BVIPA’s deputy managing director, Mr. Smith suspects, might be “afraid to give me a copy of Bobby Hodge’s schedule signed by him, stamped and dated, because if he gives it to me, I have concrete proof of what he did.”

If the schedule was not obtained through the proper channels, Mr. Smith argues, it could create a safety hazard for the public. Also, it would be unfair to companies that did go through the proper channels. An improperly issued schedule, he added, could be grounds for legal action.

“Gene Creque at the time was acting director, and if he approved a schedule that he did not have authorization to [approve], then he’s personally liable and so is the port. But, I had said to the port, ‘Let’s forget that aspect of it.’ … I’m willing to sit down in an amicable way, but if they don’t want to do that, I am of the opinion that I am going to enforce my right,’” Mr. Smith said. Later, he added: “I do believe that legally we could force the issue. But that’s the last resort. You don’t want to take government to court.”

But discussions in recent years have gone nowhere, according to Mr. Smith, who questioned the exclusion of ferry operators in recent schedule deliberations.

“How do they have a new schedule for me without ever discussing it with me? Does that sound logical to you?” he asked.

Instead, the new draft schedule, he believes, could be an attempt by ports officials to “safeguard the wrong they did years ago.”

1997 schedule

To support his point, Mr. Smith provided the Beacon with a copy of what he believes to be the most recent Road Town departure schedule properly issued by the BVIPA. Labeled, “Approved ferry departures from Road Town,” the document is stamped with the BVIPA seal and signed by its managing director. The signature is illegible, but Mr. Smith maintains it is Gene Creque’s.

The schedule does not include any trips for CME.

Mr. Smith said he tries to follow this schedule as closely as possible. But the schedule doesn’t include two of his advertised Road Town departures to St. Thomas: An 11:35 a.m. trip and a 2 p.m. trip.

Mr. Smith acknowledged that these departures aren’t on the schedule, but said, “I have a 9:35 … and a 10:05 that I don’t use.”

Two trips advertised by Native Son also conflict with the 1997 schedule provided by Mr. Smith, including one at 2:45 p.m.

Asked about the discrepancy, Frank Smith, who did not claim still to abide by the 1997 schedule, said: “We have put in several requests, even after that schedule [that was agreed upon in 1996], for additional trips. … We’ve had so many schedules now that it’s becoming like a maze of schedules.”

RTFF departures

But to Mr. Hodge, departures such as these are attempts to lure away customers who might otherwise take his Road Town Fast Ferry’s noon and 2:30 p.m. trips. He alleges that the other companies added more mid-afternoon trips from Road Town after he started his company. (Ira Smith denies this allegation, and Frank Smith declined to comment on it.)

The 1997 schedule, by Ira Smith’s interpretation, also provides for alternating departures for a Native Son and a Smith’s ferry at 6:15 a.m. and 6:45 a.m. on weekdays.

But on recent mornings, all three companies’ ferries routinely left the Road Town Ferry Terminal within a few minutes of Road Town Fast Ferry’s 7 a.m. advertised departure.

On Monday, for example, Native Son’s Oriole left at 6:50 a.m.; Smith’s Bomba Charger at 6:58 a.m.; and CME’s Road Town Fast Ferry at 7:10 a.m. About a month ago, on July 21, a Native Son ferry left at 6:47 a.m.; a Smith’s ferry at 7:02 a.m., and a CME freey at 7:06 a.m.

These times were fairly typical of weekday departures in recent weeks, though there were significant variations.

All three operators said that the situation would improve greatly if the ports authorities would properly enforce schedules and other regulations. If one ferry leaves at the wrong time, they said, then all the operators have to adjust their departures accordingly in order to remain competitive.

Ferries flout schedules?

For his part, Ports Authority Managing Director Vincent O’Neal maintains that there exists an official, signed Road Town departure schedule — albeit one that is temporarily unavailable to the public — and that all three ferry operators routinely flout it.

“All companies are running trips that are not approved by the ports authority,” Mr. O’Neal said, adding that problems arise in large part because of this behaviour.

However, BVIPA officials have difficulty enforcing regulations, in part because they have to go through the police to do so, he added. The authority, for example, hasn’t levied the fine of up to $20,000 for ignoring a BVIPA official’s order to depart, according to Mr. O’Neal.

“They have to be cited and charged and taken to court and that’s where our problems begin, because the police are the ones who have to do that,” he said.

Asked if he meant to say that port officials don’t trust the police, he said: “I wouldn’t say that there’s not the trust, but there’s a feeling that that’s not a police priority.”

Recent meetings with the police are part of the BVIPA’s efforts to solve the scheduling problems, Mr. O’Neal said, adding that he believes the police are “short-staffed.”

Solutions

Besides the new schedule, other measures are currently being considered as well, according to BVIPA officials. Sean Durrant, BVIPA marine and security manager, said officials are also considering closing departure gates, so that captains won’t be able to take on more passengers after their scheduled departure times.

In the Aug. 11 statement that announced the draft schedule, Ms. Ferdinand, the communications and works acting deputy permanent secretary, was optimistic.

“The meetings were successful and we are looking forward to the completion of the schedule and finding the best solution for all parties involved, while at the same time providing the public with a schedule that is reliable,” she said. “After consulting with the ferry owners, both jurisdictions will work together to finalise the schedule.”