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Superferry official
discusses business model
by Harry Eagar on 19 February in The Maui News Monday
[Editor's note: There is
not a word about the military or Stryker Brigade in this puff piece.
Dick Mayer has a couple of interesting comments on other angles along
the way]
The first of the two Hawaii Superferries is undergoing sea trials, the
shoreside improvements are moving ahead "on time and on budget" and the
start date is still July.
As far as Superferry leaders are concerned, the environmental impact
statement question was settled in 2005, and if the state wants to
reopen it, the state can pay for any delays.
During a visit to Maui last week, John Lehman, who organized the
financing for the Hawaii Superferry, said that the business never took
a single step without first getting a signed agreement from the state.
He seemed less concerned about a vote in the state Senate calling for
an EIS than about misconceptions about the ferry's operation and
business model. One of the things that surprises him is the criticism
from environmentalists. If they're concerned about greenhouse gases, he
said, they should embrace the ferry.
"We will burn far less hydrocarbons per passenger, under almost all
load factors" than any airplane.
He added, "We're not after the airlines."
Nor is the business model aimed at tourists. According to Lehman, the
model aims at local families, local farmers and local workers. His
vision of ferry passengers includes a sports team headed for a game
with an interisland rival,
a workman with a heavy bag of tools headed for a service call and a
farmer with a truckload of organic produce from Maui heading for Oahu,
where there are enough customers to make a small farm on Maui viable.
All these points of the business model have been overshadowed by the
controversies about whales, invasive species, drug couriers and traffic
on island roads.
Editor's note: During tabletop exercises in Camp
Aguinaldo, the Philipines, on Tuesday, the US military participants
identified eight scenarios for which four operational orders, or
opords, will be drafted. Two of them invovle the Superferry. See the
Asian Journal article here).
I don't think five seconds per vehicle should be adequate for our
Superferry inspections: They must include car registrations, dirty
vehicles, alien species, and now BOMBS possibly stadhed in each piece
of luggage!!!]
Lehman and John Garibaldi, president of Hawaii Superferry, made these
additional points about the operation:
• They expect their workers, eventually about 200 of them, to be
organized by a union, though they don't know which one.
• They anticipate eventually converting to biodiesel fuel. The ferries
are being built in Mobile, Ala., and the first one is undergoing tests
and sea trials in the Gulf of Mexico.
Lehman, a former Navy pilot and secretary of the Navy with plenty of
experience with the ocean, predicts that customers will be amazed at
how comfortable and stable the ride is.
He was surprised himself, he says, that up to sea state 4, he was
hardly aware he was afloat. Sea states, in the Pierson-Moskowitz Sea
Spectrum, characterize the combined motion from a wide variety of
factors such as wave height, period
and wind speed.
[Editor's Note: Here
is the table that Lehman referred to in his Maui News interview. He
mentioned a "Sea State" of "4". It seems that we get much higher and
more severe waves than 6-7 feet, and stronger winds on the open sea of
over 18-20 knots.A mere 25 knot wind in Sea State 5 produces 12 foot
high waves]
Sea state 4 includes 6-foot waves, a five-second period and 15-knot
winds - in other words, pretty choppy.
Furthermore, the SWATH (Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull) design means
the ferry does not have to get up to speed to be stable, unlike a
hydrofoil. Lehman says the ride is comfortable even when the
catamaranlike vessel is barely under way, down to 3 knots.
This is presented as part of the answer to the worries about running
into whales.
The overall whale avoidance plan, worked out with the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Association, includes shifting the route away from
whale waters in season, reducing speed and using both lookouts and
sensors to spot whales.
Superferry is also hiring consultants at the University of Hawaii to
develop new
whale-avoidance technology.
Lehman also says Superferry "went to a lot of trouble" with its
shipyard, Austal, to design in "belt and suspenders" systems for
control of all fluids aboard ship.
He calls it "maximum environmental consciousness."
Superferry's diesels will burn the lowest-sulfur fuel available, and as
soon as a refinery can certify a suitable quality of biodiesel to meet
manufacturer's warranties, Superferry intends to switch.
Lehman says Superferry will remove one of the barriers to increasing
the use of biodiesel in the islands - transportation. The oil companies
control the fuel distribution system (storage and pipelines), but a
tanker of biodiesel can be driven onto the ferry and delivered anytime.
Garibaldi said before regular operations begin, Superferry will be
offering short excursions to familiarize customers with it.
Customers will drive aboard (no unaccompanied vehicles will be
allowed), but they will not stay in their cars or trucks on the lower
deck.
On the upper deck there will be kiddie play areas, restaurants, and low
prices.
When Hawaii Superferry first announced its intentions, it claimed it
could halve fares compared to airlines - then charging around $100
one-way.
Although selected interisland air fares have come down since then,
Lehman says Superferry's cost advantage has only grown with the rising
world price of oil. Superferry managers, many of whom have a background
in aviation, don't believe the interisland fare war generated by the
entry of go! airline will last much longer.
However, Superferry also believes it actually will increase interisland
air traffic by creating more small businesses, which will in turn
generate business travelers.
Lehman, who is a founder of a group called Heritage Conservancy in
Bucks County, Pa., where he owns a farm, says Superferry will open up a
way for small farmers to return to survivability in the islands.
"We're here for the guys who cannot fill a whole container" to ship to
market, he said.
All of this was explained when the first SWATH ferry (the Spirit of
Ontario) made stops at island ports in March 2004 to show Hawaii
residents modern maritime technology.
[Editor's Note: The operation of the "Spirit of
Ontario" Auto Express 86 between Toronto and Rochester NY was an
unmitigated disaster. See Wikipedia article
for the nasty details. "On January 10, 2006, newly elected mayor of
Rochester Robert Duffy announced that the city government would not be
approving the ferry board's request for additional funding for the
city's subsidiary Rochester Ferry Company LLC. This has effectively
killed any hope that Spirit of Ontario I will return to its Lake
Ontario operation. The city of Rochester owes $2.5 million in a revenue
guarantee and the vessel will likely be sold." As it turned out it
did... for about 10 cents on the dollar.]
One motive was to subdue doubts from old-timers who remembered the
failure of the Sea-Flite hydrofoils in the 1970s.
What was not said in 2004 - because nobody quite expected it so soon -
was that the state's economy would generate so much barge traffic that
all the ports, but especially Kahului, would be facing serious
congestion problems by 2007.
As a result, Superferry has been blamed for causing troubles for Young
Brothers.
Even Young Brothers, which is squeezed for space at Pier 2 and at
harbors on Kauai, Oahu and the Big Island, does not claim it wouldn't
have happened if Superferry had not entered the picture.
Lehman says the state has procrastinated for decades about improving
its harbors. Although the basic business model has not changed since
2004, Lehman says it will evolve "over the next 50 years."
Come July, "We'll be ready to go."
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