Post by ferryfast admin on Nov 16, 2007 16:24:36 GMT -5
Superferry’s Kahului barge breaks loose
By HARRY EAGAR, Staff Writer
MAUI NEWS
www.mauinews.com/
KAHULUI – Just after a Maui judge said the ferry Alakai could soon resume operating in Kahului Harbor on Wednesday, the docking barge that serves the ferry snapped a mooring cable and began pounding the end of Pier 2.
Only minor damage was inflicted before harbor tugs were able to first stabilize the barge and then move it up against the side of Pier 2, away from the end of the dock where an early-winter swell apparently was more than it could handle.
The incident opened a question about the viability of the ferry operations at Kahului, which is subject to severe north swells during the winter months.
Hawaii Superferry’s operational plan had recognized that swells and surge in the harbor can be troublesome at times, and that the docking barge would occasionally have to be shifted away from its semipermanent home at berth 2C.
The occasions were reckoned to be few.
But the huge barge got in trouble in the first north swell it encountered, and it wasn’t a big swell.
On Wednesday, northwest swells generated by a pair of north Pacific storms were running 3 to 5 feet on Maui’s north shore – 6 to 10 feet if using the National Weather Service standard of measuring full wave faces from trough to peak.
“People were surfing in the harbor,” said Rowland Lee, the Kahului manager of Young Brothers/Hawaiian Tug & Barge, which shares Pier 2 with the ferry.
About 4 p.m. Wednesday, a steel chain and cable holding the barge in place snapped. Other mooring lines kept the barge under partial control, but it was swinging and pounding against the pier, according to Scott Ishikawa, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.
Several surfers and paddlers at the harbor Wednesday evening said a tugboat first responded by pushing against the barge to hold it against the dock until a second tug could assist in swinging the dock away from berth 2C to berth 2B, where the Superferry itself would normally be docked for unloading.
The tugs Pacific Spirit and Daniel K. Akaka were involved in moving the barge to berth 2B, which is more sheltered from a northwest swell running down the harbor entrance channel.
Lee said the changes had no effect on YB operations Thursday.
Ishikawa said the side of the barge suffered some scrapes, and the pier lost some of its rubber fenders.
No serious damage was reported, although a bollard at berth 2C appeared to have been cracked.
Last December, when swells were much bigger – estimated 10 to 15 feet – ships tugging at their lines ripped four huge bollards off two of the piers.
Steve Pfister, the harbor master, said then that if something is to fail, he would prefer to lose a bollard rather than have it hold and finally drag off a chunk of pier with it.
Pfister was away Thursday, but last year he had called berth 2C “the worst place to park” when the water in the harbor is surging hard.
Hawaii Superferry officials deferred comment to the state, which owns the barge.
Ishikawa said a bollard sheared off Pier 2 Wednesday as well.
“The swells weren’t that huge,” he said.
He said the state would monitor the situation but he could not say what the event implied, if anything, for daily operations. The company said it would announce its plans for resumption of service today.
The ferry is being allowed to operate under a new state law requiring the state Department of Transportation to prepare an environmental impact statement on harbor upgrades that allow the ferry to use the harbors – and to mitigate any environmental or social impacts.
On Wednesday afternoon, Maui Circuit Judge Joseph Cardoza lifted an injunction he had issued on ferry operations, saying the new law superseded his decision
With the first ferry, Alakai, Hawaii Superferry plans daily round trips between Honolulu and Kahului and Sunday-to-Friday service from Honolulu to Nawiliwili on Kauai.
The Kahului run would dock at 9:30 a.m. and depart at 11 a.m. under the company’s schedule. But the 90-minute stopover could be in jeopardy under an order from 2nd Circuit Judge Joel August that only two vehicles a minute can be allowed to exit from the ferry terminal to Puunene Avenue.
Attorneys for the state and the Superferry say the time limit would hamper the ferry’s ability to maintain its schedule, and a motion to lift the order is scheduled for a hearing by August on Monday.
The Kahului barge and a similar one in Honolulu Harbor serve as ramps so cars can drive off the ferry decks, which are higher than the pier. At Nawiliwili, no barge is necessary.
Harry Eagar can be reached at heagar@mauinews.com