Spirit Marine
July 27, 2005 [Faxl]

SPIRIT Marine
164 Northern Avenue
Suite 75
Boston, MA 02210
(617) 748-1410
FAX (617)748-1425

Office of Technical and Information Services
Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board
1331 F Street NW, Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20004-1111

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Spirit Marine, a member of the Passenger Vessel Association, submits these comments regarding your efforts to develop accessibility guidelines for passenger vessels, as published in the Federal Register, of November of November 26, 2004. Please include these comments in the official record of both your dockets as well as the corresponding U.S. Department of Transportation Docket.

Spirit Marine operates 13 dinner cruise sightseeing vessels, carrying nearly one million passengers annually. We operate out of seven cities in the U.S. and do not control any of the docks we berth at. We leave from and arrive at the same pier facility in each of the cities we operate in.

Our cruises are generally less than three hours in duration and accommodate up to 600 passengers on either two or three enclosed decks with an additional upper outside deck. We operate out of seven cities in the U.S. and do not control any of the docks we berth at.

We have accommodated passengers with disabilities throughout our 27 year history. Our vessels have handicap accessible rest moms on at least one deck per vessel and our crew have comfortably and readily assisted passengers with wheelchairs between decks. Though passengers with disabilities have been too low to measure on our vessels, we do recall specific, rare, group bookings in the past that have seen as many as 50 wheelchairs accommodated comfortably.

I am aware that the Passenger Vessel Association has been in frequent contact with the Access Board regarding this rulemaking, including testifying at public hearings three times in 2005. I support the following points that PVA has stressed in its comments:

• Providing access in marine and aquatic environments is more challenging than doing so at sites on land. Waves, wind, tides, fluctuating river, harbor, and lake levels and various types of vessel motions must be contended with. In designing, constructing, and operating a vessel, there is no higher priority than safety.
• There is a wide diversity of types, sizes, and functions of passenger vessels in the U.S- domestic passenger vessel fleet. Most vessels to be affected by the Access Board action are not cruise ships.
• Designing accessibility into a vessel becomes much more difficult as the size of the vessel decreases. Therefore is it appropriate to have one set of guidelines for vessels with a capacity of more than 150 passengers, and a different set for vessels with a smaller passenger capacity.
• The Access Board should develop its guidelines for vessels with a capacity of more than 150 passengers first, waiting until after this work is complete before funkier studying and developing guidelines for smaller vessels.
• The recommendations of the Passenger Vessel Access Advisory Committee, on which four PVA members participated, are preferable to the proposed guidelines put forth by the Access Board.
• Any provision that passenger vessels be required to provide vertical access between decks should be tailored very narrowly to those vessel designs and capacities that arc capable of safely and efficiently containing elevators or lifts. In many cases, installing elevators in vessels is technically unfeasible, structurally impractical, and potentially unsafe. This is particularly true for small vessels.

Thank you for this opportunity to participate in your rulemaking process.

Sincerely,

Michael Glasfeld
President