Canceled: Manitou Island Transit - What Factors lead to Cancelling a Ferry Trip to South or North

13 Sept 2024 · 1 min

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1:08

In this brief interview, two speakers discuss the operational process for deciding whether to cancel a ferry trip to Manitou Island. They explain that monitoring begins roughly 72 hours before a scheduled departure, but reliable forecasts are only available about 24 hours out. On the morning of the decision window, staff check the NOAA buoy located in the North Manitou Passage for real‑time wave‑height data, which is publicly accessible. This buoy information, combined with incoming inquiries from the public, informs the final cancellation decision.

What are the different factors that you guys have to monitor to decide whether to cancel a ferry or not?
So it starts usually around 72 hours out where we're tracking and really feel like it's only pretty accurate 24 hours out. People often are calling in and asking and we just say 24 hours out we generally know. So we wake up that morning, check the buoy which is out in the North Manitou Passage there.
How do you check the buoy?
So we go to NOAA.
Okay.
So, and then there's, it has a running checks and updates their buoy and wave height. Is that publicly available?
Mm-hmm. Okay. Yep, I can, if you ever want to, I can send it to you. Yeah.
So, and at that point from there, we then call the island and get the input on the island of the docks. And then the other thing we have to take into account is what they're calling for later in the afternoon. Okay. So we don't want to take our visitors out there and strand them. So if we're looking, we always err on the side side of caution on that. So if we think it's going to be rough to pick them up, we don't ever want to strand day visitors. So we will often not take them if it's going to be rough in the afternoon.