MR CHAPMAN: Good morning. My name is Dave Chapman, art text with the University of Delaware Sea Grant. Also work for the Society of Naval Architects and serve with the field back committee. And thank you for the opportunity to be here to share a few comments.
Next slide, please. I have some comments about some of the toilet room requirements or guidelines and shown here, we have a typical I will call this prototype space with a turning area inside the toilet room.
Next slide looks at some dimensions here. We have about 42 square feet for this square feet for this particular room, concentrate on the smaller vessels, both subchapter T and K.
Next slide please. This is the water bus shown earlier. Vessel in service, 242 foot long, carries 70 passengers, built in 2002 and is not fitted with a toilet facility.
Next slide, please. In the upper or the middle right of this slide, there is you can see a guardrail and there is steep stair going down to other locker there.
Next slide. That locker I'm told was originally designated as a toilet room but is not now so designated. You don't have that locker room on board.
I just want to mention and these are ferries also selected to look at there is an issue of when do you need a toilet on a ferry? How long is the route, how much time between stops and so forth? And basically, the guidelines, proposed guidelines basically say if you have a toilet space, it's got to be accessible. But there is not a treatment of that situation where when do you need this facility?
Next slide please: This is another vessel not much longer or much larger than the previous one, Also built in 2002, a subchapter T with 74 passenger capacity.
Next slide, please: You got a 34 inch door opening as opposed to a 32 proposed guideline. And no threshold at all.
This is probably this is the best situation that you can have, obviously to move a wheelchair into a space without that threshold. And looking at the larger part of the space, we got about 30 square feet.
So, this compartment would not satisfy the 60 inch turning radius and that is one of the key issues I want to point out in the existing ferry vessels, smaller vessels built since ADA came to be and most of these were built since year 2000.
There were numerous other discrepancies here from the guidelines that I'm not going to regress at this time. I'm basically looking at that turning circle can and the threshold and door entry.
Next slide, please: This is another ferry vessel.
This vessel is shown here docked in New Jersey and transit a mile across the Hudson river.
You can see the Empire State Building in the background there, 150 passenger vessel.
Subchapter T built in the year 2000. This vessel is fitted with two toilet rooms. And the next slide please. You got a 340 and 3 quarter inch opening. Somewhat less than the 32 which is recommended. And but, a very low threshold. This threshold is only a quarter inch high which would be compatible with the proposed regulations.
The next slide, please. This measures the overall measurement of this space and comes to about 31 square feet. And again, shy of what I will call to what is shown at the beginning here, 30 some square feet.
Next slide, please: Just a picture of a space. We will go to another one, please, another vessel, slightly larger but still, subchapter T under 150 passenger limit, built in 1995, also in service across the Hudson River.
Next slide, please. This vessel has sliding doors with a 30 inch opening and again, a very low threshold. This has about 3 to 8 inch crack for the sliding door.
Next slide, please. And this space actually measures a slightly smaller than the previous one, get about 29 square feet.
Next slide, please. We have another vessel and this gets into a subchapter K one of the larger vessels with 396 passengers and this was purpose built for this service, the one crossing is to the fitted.
Next slide please. Another vessel, also subchapter K from 1993. Next slide.
This has also slow profile. Next slide please. And about 34 square feet. Next slide please: that is subchapter H, tonnage.
And next slide. Large opening. Next slide, and 44 square feet in this larger vessel.
And final slide, is this is kind of busy too but basically, looking to do a comparison, prototype of about 42 square feet of space, the other vessels on the order of 30, most of the other vessels on the order of 30.
In my opinion, from an original design, there is no reason that those could not be expanded to meet the turning radius. And again, this one we can share with the Board some of the situations in the ferry industry today and I will conclude my comments. Thank you.
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MS. [PAMELA] DORWARTH [BOARD MEMBER]: Mine is for Mr. Chapman.
You showed in your pictures I'm hearing impaired going from one screen to the other, you that there was not enough room but a male and female restroom.
Why not use that space to make one unisex bathroom and then, you would have more space to accommodate the disabled? Is that allowed in our regulations? And is that a consideration?
Is that something you considered in your designs?
MR. CHAPMAN: Okay, first of all, just for clarity, those were not my designs.
MS. DORWARTH: In your presentation?
MR. CHAPMAN: But your point is well taken.
And I believe in the picture that I showed, the one vessel had two restroom facilities, both unisex.
If I'm not mistaken, all of the restrooms were unisex and certainly from the designer, we recommend that for the best available use of the deck space.
MS. DORWARTH: It looks like a male and female.
MR. CHAPMAN: That may have been, but I believe they were all unisex.
MS. DORWARTH: Another question is do you do the dinner ferries also? Is that under your category for charter?
MR. CHAPMAN: I didn't look at the dinner cruise vessels but certainly , they have very similar issues.
MS. DORWARTH: I can't take a dinner cruise with my son when he comes to Sarasota because there is no bathroom accessible to me.
MR. CHAPMAN: Well, as a 54 year old male, I value those facilities. We understand where you're going.