Marine pilots say crowding at Skagway’s port is a potential safety risk

 

When a ship enters Alaskan waters, a state-assigned pilot helps it navigate the channels safely. The Alaska Board of Marine Pilots flagged part of Skagway’s port as a potential collision risk zone this June. That’s because the port, like the rest of Skagway, gets very crowded in summertime.

This season Skagway will host about a million visitors⁠—most arriving by cruise ship.  On busy days, there are five cruise ships moored in Skagway’s port.

To fuel this burgeoning tourist industry, Skagway needs…fuel.  Barges make deliveries to Petro Marine Services at the Ore Dock. But the ore dock is adjacent to the Broadway dock, where cruise ships are.

State assigned marine pilots say that’s too close.

“Their chief responsibility is to ensure the safe and efficient transit of ships and vessels inbound and outbound in Alaska,” said Henry De La Garza, the Public Information Officer for The Southeast Alaska Pilots Association, or SEAPA. SEAPA represents pilots who take the helm for cruise ships in the Lynn Canal.

They say the tight fit at the Broadway and Ore docks in Skagway poses a significant safety risk. So they’re drafting guidelines to help reduce the risk of what they call a catastrophic event.

SEAPA realized this issue needed special consideration this summer when the Norwegian Jewel⁠—a nearly 1,000 foot cruise ship⁠—rerouted to nearby Haines instead of docking while a barge was at the ore dock. There was another scheduling conflict in June.

This hasn’t always been a problem. SEAPA has been piloting cruise ships while barges were at the Ore Dock for about 20 years. But cruise ships keep getting bigger and more frequent.

“Windows are getting a little tighter. Basically, more cooperation is needed. We’re working on it,” said Port Manager Stuart Stevens.

He says it’s not too big of a deal, unless the wind picks up. That’s commonplace in Skagway, whose name means “windy place” in Tlingit.

Lately, Stevens works closely with Petro Marine, the fuel operator on the Ore Dock, to reduce potentially risky situations. They changed a cruise ship’s dock assignment  just last week to avoid crowding the fuel barge.

“We’re trying to get everything worked out. I mean, because the town needs fuel and the town needs food. So I mean, you can’t just block them out,” he said.

Cruise ships have increased in size dramatically in the past several years. There’s also a lot more of them. The barges that carry their fuel are getting bigger, too.

Petro Marine Services Manager Tim Cochran says  there are new procedures in place this year.

“We’ve agreed to stop, transfer any fuel uncoupled the hoses and move off the dock and let the cruise ship and on adjacent dock,” he said.

“And when they’re secured in there. And their engines are turned down their belt restrooms are off. We come back into the dock and we complete our fueling operations.”

He says uncoupling and moving off the dock, then returning to finish operations later is costly. They need to contract tugs to move the barges. And with the tourism industry projecting continued growth, he says the problem won’t fix itself.

“It’s an industry that is growing, and it’s growing at a faster pace than the infrastructure can handle. And so everyone needs to sit down and come to terms of where do we go forward,” said Cochran.

A decades old lease held by White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad expires in a few years. That’s an opening for  the municipality to reconsider the port’s design.

SEAPA President Kathleen Flury said there should be no scheduling conflicts for the remainder of the summer. She plans to have a meeting with the railroad and Petro Marine Services after the cruise ship season.