MS. [JAN] TUCK [BOARD CHAIR]: Okay. Dawn, will you -- excuse me. David, introduce yourself and who you represent.
MR. CHAPMAN: Sure. It's Dave Chapman, and I'm here to try to give oral testimony.
I'd like to address some of the -- or your option 4 and trying to move towards where we might find some limit that's below 150 passengers to apply this suite of criteria or guidelines.
I want to point out a vessel here that's below -- actually below the 65-foot threshold that the access committee had put together or addressed for small vessels. As you can see here, this is a relatively short vessel. It's a high speed. It travels at about 25 knots around New York Harbor. It carries 74 passengers, 54 of those on the main deck and the balance up on the upper deck.
The point of showing this is that this vessel is almost compliant with the guidelines that were proposed in the December 2000 report. And I think it's kind of remarkable what the builder has done with this to make it so, and I just want to point out several of those features.
The passengers come aboard and you have aircraft-style seating here, nice wide aisle space. I apologize. I think I might have gotten these out of order here. We'll try this.
Okay. Well, we'll do it this way. This just shows the stairway up to the upper deck. This particular vessel is really -- in my opinion, it's too small to put an elevator on to have access to the weather area on the upper deck. Having an elevator on this vessel and many other vessels would create a problem stability-wise.
And also, because it is a high-speed vessel, there would also be problems with the speed in having to give up passenger space or passenger weight, I should say. It's a very weight-sensitive vessel, as well as additional -- perhaps additional machinery, generating machinery, for the power for the elevator.
But coming aboard -- and this is the -- there's a gangway up here for getting onto the vessel, and you come through a door. The doorway is nice and wide. And one of the things that they've done here is to ramp up a two- or three-inch coaming on the main deck. You can see that's about a three-inch coaming. I thought they did a particularly good job on that. This gangway is not particularly good, but I understand that's been replaced now with a much more effective gangway.
This vessel even has a toilet on board, which, for a ferry boat, I think is a little unusual. But, even though it does not meet the full criteria from the December 2000 report, it's still a very or almost as functional as what was intended by that report.
There's no threshold here going into the space. There was a lack of a setoff here, lack of a handrail in the back there. It does not meet this turn radius requirement or guideline, but it is rather generous for a vessel this size. And there are sockets for wheelchair restraints, but only one set on this vessel, which is designed for 54 passengers.
But, again, essentially, this vessel, even though it's only 54 feet long, 53 feet long, it does a remarkable job of addressing the criteria in the guideline and 74 passengers.
We have another vessel with 70 passengers. This is down in Ft. Lauderdale also. It's a water taxi, but it provides essentially comparable to bus service, and it's tied in with the Broward County system.
This one is only 42 feet long, 70 passengers. It's slow speed. This one will make about seven knots. But it's a very dense seating arrangement. The passengers load over the bow and through a hinged door here. They go back into -- it's really chair seating on both sides. And there are constraints or barriers to get by these corners up here. Those chairs could be removed. There are restraints down here.
But the passenger capacity here is such that it far exceeds the nominal Coast Guard passenger density of 10 square feet per passenger. But there is a criteria in the Coast Guard that, if you're in ferry service, you can base the passenger load on the number of seats as long as they're at least 18 inches wide. And these seats are 18 inches wide, but it does present considerable barriers, even though it's 70 passengers.
And what I'm getting at, I'll show you a couple more pictures here of this particular vessel. This is looking forward again to that hinged door. Let me go back to the other one.
There's another hinged door towards the aft end of the cabin, and that opens up into an open air space back here. That would be very difficult for someone to get to, getting down this aisle and around these corners, to get back here in the open air space if they were in a wheelchair, per se.
MS. TUCK: David, are those chairs attached, or are they all removable?
MR. CHAPMAN: Well, there is a -- go back here. There's a -- do you see this box here?
MS. TUCK: Okay.
MR. CHAPMAN: There's a sheetmetal box, and it has holes for the chair legs, so the legs are simply stuck in these holes. And so they are fixed in that regard.
FEMALE VOICE: Do the seats rise?
MR. CHAPMAN: I'm sorry?
FEMALE VOICE: Can the seats rise, or are they permanent?
MR. CHAPMAN: No. Well, you can lift the chair out.
FEMALE VOICE: No, I meant the seat itself. If you flipped it up, then you would get the anchor.
MR. CHAPMAN: It does not flip.
FEMALE VOICE: Okay.
MR. CHAPMAN: There are legs on these chairs. These are normal chairs --
FEMALE VOICE: Okay.
MR. CHAPMAN: -- four-legged chairs, and the chair could be lifted out and moved. It's not restrained vertically.
Originally, there was a restroom on this vessel. It's about a 15-inch space here. That's been decommissioned. And that, you know, that's another issue.
But the beam on this vessel is only 11-1/4 feet. This would be rather difficult to make accessible, but I think that, if we're shooting for some figure, something less than 150 passengers, I think the 74-passenger vessel that was the first one that I showed you is certainly within -- you know, you could reach that and make it meet these criteria.
MS. TUCK: Okay.
MR. CHAPMAN: Thank you.
MS. TUCK: Thank you.
MR. [J.R.] HARDING {BOARD MEMBER]: Madam Chairman?
MS. TUCK: Yes.
MR. HARDING: Could I ask Dave a question?
MS. TUCK: Absolutely.
MR. HARDING: With your New York boat -- could we have that back on the slide, sir, your New York taxi boat -- you mentioned the difficulty with an elevator.
MR. CHAPMAN: Yes.
MR. HARDING: In the state of Florida, we have a vertical access rule that is different than anyone else in the nation. And we use a lot of lulus and things, the little lift devices that are not elevators but, in fact, could facilitate that kind of a, you know, lift. Had you guys ever thought of that?
MR. CHAPMAN: It's possible that a lightweight -- I'm sorry -- it's possible that a lightweight piece of equipment could be fitted.
MR. HARDING: Uh-huh.
MR. CHAPMAN: But I can't say categorically that it wouldn't work --
MR. HARDING: Right.
MR. CHAPMAN: -- but I'm very skeptical. As the vessel gets smaller and smaller, that top side weight becomes more and more -- has more and more of an impact on the vertical center and, hence, the stability.
MR. HARDING: Okay.
MS. [PAMELA] DORWARTH [BOARD MEMBER]: Would you flip your screen -- keep going -- to the one with the doors? No. Come back. Keep going back to your New York one.
MR. CHAPMAN: I'm sorry.
MS. DORWARTH: Is that handle way up at the top?
MR. CHAPMAN: Oh. Yes. This --
MS. DORWARTH: What's the handle up at the top?
MR. CHAPMAN: Okay. These are called dogs. There's a handle up here, and they're --
MS. DORWARTH: I'm sorry. I'm a lip reader. What did you say?
MR. CHAPMAN: I'm sorry. These are called dogs, for a weathertight door.
MS. DORWARTH: Uh-huh.
MR. CHAPMAN: It's a cam locking device to keep the weather seal fixed. And, in this case, that is, you know, beyond the reach zone. And there's another one down low that's below a reach zone as well, so that is a problem.
MS. DORWARTH: They can't be adjusted any other places?
MR. CHAPMAN: I think there is a solution to that. There will be other applications of particularly watertight doors where you might have a six-dogged as a common arrangement that would be a problem, but they're normally crew-operated.
MS. DORWARTH: We're considering in the southwest Sarasota area water taxis. And, as J.R. was alluding to, the ones that they're looking at, I don't know the size just yet. They do have the lulu or the lift chair.
MR. CHAPMAN: Mm-hmm.
MS. DORWARTH: I don't know the company. Is there anything else?
MS. TUCK: Pam, we've got the phone call on hold, so can --
MS. DORWARTH: Okay. Go ahead.
MR. CHAPMAN: Okay. Thank you.
MS. TUCK: Thank you, David.