Transcript_Ranger IV Industry Day_2022-06-16.pdf

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

This is Dan Manheim from the Department of Transportation Volpe Center. This industry day is being held for market research purposes, while the Volpe Center acquisition team finalizes this requirement and determines the method of procurement. Today we'll be giving an overview of the pre solicitation notice that was published on sam.gov and the basis of design. Later, Captain Aaron will be walking through the vessel with us for informational purposes and to demonstrate the multifaceted nature of Ranger III that you see here.

I will do my best to answer some technical questions that I'm allowed to answer, but please document all questions for submission to the acquisition team and please send those questions, comments and suggestions to Dan Leone which is daniel.leone@dot.gov and also Andrew Josephs at andrew.josephs@dot.gov for review and I believe both their contact info is included in the sam.gov notice or in previous emails to all of you.

So with that, Isle Royale National Park operates the motor vessel Ranger III, which is the ship we're currently sitting on, between Houghton MI and Isle Royale, and it's the largest piece of moving equipment in the National Park Service, and it's also the largest passenger ferry providing service to and from the island.

There are many amenities on board as you'll be able to see later, including interpretive and educational programs, and food sales (although that's temporarily halted because of COVID some staterooms lounges). There's a few decks for passenger areas and indoor and outdoor passenger seating. In addition to passengers, the ship also transports food, fuel, power boats, trash, other cargo to and from the island. The ship really is the lifeline to the park.

The ship was constructed in 1958. She's 64 years old now, nearing the end of its useful life. And so as the industry they notice said, the Volpe Center working with the Park Service anticipates developing a preliminary/contract design for the replacement vessel Ranger IV.

During today's visit, you'll have a chance to tour Ranger III to get an idea of history, uses, and park needs. We also kind of want to note that it's an experience riding Ranger III out to the island. It's a 5 hour trip to Mott Island, another half an hour or so to Rock Harbor. And it kind of brings you back in time a little bit. You lose cell phone service halfway out. Currently, there's no Internet on the ship for the public to use anyway. And so you kind of transition into that rustic experience of the national park Isle Royale. So that's just something to think about as you look around and experience the ship today.

And then as part of this industry day, we welcome feedback on the draft basis of design and the draft statement of work that was included in the pre-solicitation notice and also how the requirements will fit into a cohesive ship in the future. A replacement vessel doesn't need to mimic this current ship. Exactly.

That's not needed and there are some changes we would probably recommend, but it will still be the pride of Isle Royale National Park.

Now I'm going to turn it over to [Captain] Aaron. Just kind of to talk about Ranger III and what the ship means.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

So like Dan said, it was built in 1958, so she's nearing the end of her useful life, but you know, nonetheless, when people think about Isle Royale, you know, this is one of the most recognized symbols of that associated with the park. And really it's just an iconic symbol for Isle Royale, for Lake Superior, for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. You know, it's been it's been forever. People have been, people have literally grown up, you know, watching this boat traverse the waterway back and forth and listening to the whistle and, you know, it's very ingrained. They can probably speak to that. It's a very ingrained part of this community and, you know, for Isle Royale too.

So, you know, for Isle Royale it’s the primary link to the rest of the world. Without it, you know the Park Falls on hard times really quickly. At times it's even a lifeline, you know, to deal with unplanned situations. So you know from like Dan listed a couple of things that we that we carry you know from boats to dumpsters and groceries, building supplies and diesel fuel and a million other odds and ends that we that we carry. You know, Isle Royale simply doesn't function without the logistics that this boat provides, you know, all over the place.

So it along with what we plan to carry, you know, one of the biggest assets that this ship provides is its ability to respond to the unexpected. You know, there are, as you can imagine an island park in Lake Superior with visitors, you know, things tend to happen. One of the fun examples we have: a few years ago, one of the sea planes broke down out there and couldn't fly back, so we were able to bring it up next to the ship, pick it up with our crane and set it on the deck of the ship and bring it back. The crew was very proud that for a day we became an aircraft carrier.

But more commonly, the concessioner ferries, you know, either have breakdowns or can't sail in heavy weather, and we're able to push through a lot of those things. You know, like you just alluded to earlier, when the fog sets in on Lake Superior, the seaplane is there, they can't fly. And so we're able to absorb those passengers into our [ship]. Just so you know, like the lot of unexpected things that we that we're able to. Take care of that without, you know, without we create some real headaches for the park.

But despite our versatility, you know the parks needs have just changed and evolved over the last 60 years, 64 years. So you know, and that includes like increased visitation, increased boat traffic, there's way more personal boats that go out there now than ever were before. More flight operations that are having both with seaplane travel and research flights that are happening all over the island. Maybe you know about the Wolf Moose research study that is kind of ongoing out there and really kind of a unique cool thing out of the park. And just increase power demands. You know, as things grow out there, the needs for the generators to work harder and harder and burn more and more diesel fuel.

Obviously boats are burning more gasoline and all that kind of stuff. So it puts a strain on the, you know, the park’s aging infrastructure to be able to meet all those demands. So after exhaustive transportation studies, research value analysis largely spearheaded by this gentleman right here, Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

And the Volpe Center, not just me.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Yeah, and as we look ahead to the next 50 years of the operation that needs for the park, you know, we kind of have concluded through all of that that you know another single ship solution is still the best, most reliable, path forward for the park to be able to accomplish all of the desired transportation missions, not necessarily all the same time but, you know to be able to have a vessel that can like this when you know, where a few different paths at different times, you'll need it.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Yeah. And we'll talk more about those missions just in a little bit, but yeah. So thanks, Aaron.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Yeah, for sure.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

And for those on the phone, that was Captain Aaron of the ship. I don't know if we introduced you.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Sorry. Hello, everyone.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Alright, so per the pre-solicitation notice, the anticipated scope of work for this would be to complete a preliminary design, professional engineered stamp contract drawings and construction specs and construction cost estimate for a Ranger IV. This will include ABS and society class approvals. Ultimately, we want to bring the design to where the Park Service or the Volpe Center or someone could go out to a shipyard for bid. So it's that preliminary/contract design effort and drawings. And the draft list of deliverables was included in the industry day notice. Currently there are 36 deliverable items with some of them having multiple parts. Again, draft list is this kind of what we're looking at, included for a preliminary design.

Let's see. The vessel, it's obviously a unique vessel. And as Aaron talked about as well, you know we carry passengers. So it's a, it's a passenger vessel subchapter H, it's a cargo vessel because it carries bulk cargo and wheeled cargo - carts. And carries diesel fuel. I don't believe you're subchapter D, though?

The current ship is not subchapter D. And then for the Ranger IV, in addition to all those missions, we're also looking to start carrying gasoline and aviation gas on deck. So it really, trying to, you know, work with all of the ABS and Coast Guard rules and regulations of all the different chapters, trying to fit together. It's gonna be unique. But it will have to be designed as both the passenger and cargo vessel, with ABS classification and meets SOLAS and other requirements as needed.

And the design shall incorporate the requirements, goals and features as we specified in the basis of design to the maximum extent possible, is what we're saying. We realized the ship design process is a spiral. We all know this, and as we kind of go through it, there might be some things that will have to drop out in the vessel generally of this size. But the intent is to design it to the basis of design.

So I was now gonna just kind of highlight some of the different things in the basis of design. I wasn't planning to read through it line by line, but if there are questions, technical questions, we can try to answer them. I will also try to document questions so we can post them on sam.gov for others as well.

Uh, so as we said the ship Ranger IV should be designed to meet all missions performed by the Isle Royale National Park, to meet Coast Guard, ABS and other applicable safety regulations and safety standards.

One thing different about, Ranger III actually has a waiver for the, I don't remember who was it by, the Coast Guard? For the single hull.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Umm, yeah. So when OPA90 you know came about and was implemented and everything like that.

Actually there was a provision in a Coast Guard Authorization act that waived the Ranger III from being forced to have double hull construction for as a tank vessel. So as long as it's owned by the National Park Service, owned and operated.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

But the Ranger IV will have to meet the double hull tanker, you know, regulation for that, you know. We want to meet the requirements as they're specified in the laws.

We're still looking at another 50 year service life. This ship is obviously 64 and will continue to operate for the foreseeable future. But 50 years is a good mark.

The ship shall be designed to ensure the safety and comfort of the passengers. As I experienced on Tuesday, I don't know if anyone else went out to the island on Tuesday. I don't believe so, but it was a little bit rough. Beam seas, six footers kind of toward the end, I think. And it's a little rough. So comfort of the passengers to prevent them from getting sick, which happens, it's something we really want to look at. But also note that typically Ranger IV would not operate above the sea state seven with passengers, and even then I think it's kind of, you look at the weather and you decide if you're going to go or not. You know, we don't, I'm using the royal “we” because I don't actually work for the park, but we don't want to be so unpleasant a ride that once they get out to the island and have a horrible experience, right.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

And we talk about the changing needs of the park. Right. And one of those things is the fact that NOAA has told us that since the 1980s, the average wind speed on Lake Superior has been increasing by about 5% per decade and expects to have that trend continue over the next several decades. So, you know, so we expect that over the next over the lifespan of Ranger IV, you know it will, it will encounter a lot of heavy weather.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

And then another big part that we really wanted to look at is: all the major equipment we should be able to maintain it and get recertified on the Great Lakes. Ranger III has never touched saltwater. She be built in Wisconsin and you know the typical route is from Houghton, Michigan up to the island, to Rock Harbor and Mott Island, which is more of the east side of the island. There's Houghton to Windigo, which is the West side of the island. And then there's canal cruises just in the Keweenaw here. And occasionally Ranger III will go to shipyard periods, either Duluth or Sturgeon Bay or somewhere around.

But it's a Great Lakes vessel, and we want to keep it that way. So equipment on board, you know, we're trying, we don't want something that would have to the ship would have to go down to Houston or somewhere else to a major shipyard down there. So it's something we're definitely considering. And so as we said in the basis of design, propulsion, electric, lifesaving, and other major components must have service locations on the Great Lakes or within 10 hours drive of Houghton, Michigan.

Audience:

So would you be opposed to building outside of the Great Lakes and transiting to Michigan?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

I can't answer that. This effort is only for the design of the ship, not for the construction. But I'm going to write that down.

Audience:

Good question. It limits your options. Where was this one built?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

This one was built in Sturgeon Bay.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

By the Christie Corporation is no longer there. Bay Shipbuilding, I think at one point absorbed. And then became Fincantieri.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

So I talked about the typical groups. The typical operating season is mid-April through mid-October only. It's about 45 to 50 round trips per year. Other than that, the ship stays docked here at this pier throughout the winter, including icing in the canal and whatnot.

And so I know I'm repeating myself again, but the missions that the ship will have to meet are passenger service, and that's for the public, for visitors. But it's also for staff members who work on the island and for families of staff members who work on the island.

There's cargo transport and the ones we know that are typical are powerboats, hand loaded boats (canoes and kayaks), passenger baggage, refrigerated and frozen foods, non-perishable foods, general cargo, construction materials, trash. Within trash there’s also things like fish guts and things like that.

And then fuel transport, Ranger III already does diesel and propane, which gets carried on deck. Ranger IV, we're looking to do also gasoline and aviation gas on deck in containers or gasoline totes, but within Coast Guard requirements.

And then there are different operating modes, depending on what the ship is carrying, right? So that's kind of what Aaron was talking about. The ship doesn't have to do everything all at once, but it needs to be able to a lot of things. So there's the normal passenger transport, which is what you would have seen yesterday or the day before where it's up to, pre-COVID it was up to 128 passengers and staff. That's Ranger III. For Ranger IV, we're looking at 150, and then as well as the cargo.

Audience:

Umm, isn't it 200? Give the surge capacity.

But yeah, so typically, 150 plus cargo and fuel, but the surge passenger capacity is up to 200 passengers.

And the intent there is for when the seaplane can't operate or when the, so there's other ferries that operate to the park. There's the Isle Royale Queen which comes from Copper Harbor up the peninsula bit. And then there's two small ferries out at the western end from Minnesota. And if those ships can't operate or goes down because of maintenance reasons, we want to be able to get passengers off the island. And right now if you max out all your ships, there's no extra capacity. So the surge capacity intent is in those situations, you could legally take people off the island. I wouldn't anticipate it changing the amount of seating on the ship, but it would, you know, lifesaving sizing and that, that stuff.

Audience:

Generally, yeah, the bigger impact.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Yes. Yeah.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

And there's a lot of situations like that. Like last summer, there was a wild fire on Isle Royale, fairly significant at one point where we had to bring in wildland firefighters in a fairly rapid order in order to save some of the developed areas of Isle Royale before they, before they burned down. And we were able to, you know, get everybody out to, you know, there. And all the equipment that goes with that, I think we took enough fire hose out there to stretch from one end of Isle Royale all the way to the other.

Countless other pumps and all that kind of stuff, but yeah.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

And actually in in the way Ranger III is currently operating, because of COVID, the passenger capacity is artificially limited just to provide a little more space. So they're kind of is that built in surge capacity right now. But and I think the park definitely wants to have that for the future for these situations.

The other passenger option is kind of the canal cruise, which is just passengers. No cargo, just up and down the canal with local, local folks, you do that a few times a year, generally.

Audience:

From here?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

We either go, like up to the upper entry or very often just to do something different, we go down to the lower end of the Keweenaw waterway.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Then there's specialty cargo, which is, this is when generally carrying extra heavy cargo or fuel that is limited by the Coast Guard. So when the ship is carrying gasoline or propane, they'd be limited to 25 persons on the vessel and in those cases pretty much only it would be only the crew and the cargo, no passengers.

And then there's late season transit, where there's only the crew just early in the season and late in the season bringing equipment out to the island or bringing equipment off the island, closing down the island for the winter. And some of those situations, especially in the winter, there can be some icing just because the cold water, cold Lake Superior up there in November time frame. There's also going back and forth to dry docks, wherever they are.

In terms of size, we're looking at…

Audience:

The basis of design talks about containers on deck?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

I believe the basis of design talks to having the deck fittings, the ISO container deck fittings.

Audience:

And you're looking for like certain model like that, or standard size?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

If it would, I think it would be discussions in the design process. I think 40 foot might be too big just for the capacity of the equipment to support that. But 20 foot containers, I think, yes, probably.

Audience:

Stacking of containers?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

I don't even think we'd need to stack it. But this is going to be, I would say you know with the basis of design, as designers are looking at the best way to do all the missions. Have to look at this. I'm gonna write that question down.

As we go through the design spiral. How do we meet all these missions? That's, I'm sure one of the options that will come up and we'll work through you know the best way to do it. But that's actually it's a good point of why, you know why we're doing this industry days to get that feedback. It was also to look at the dock here and what we can support here. And the shore side equipment here, but also the shore side equipment at the Park too, on the island.

Audience:

There is a potential for changing the loading equipment here and at the park?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

I believe so, and I believe, making sure it's here, yeah, the last deliverable item we had that we were anticipating I should say, is a shore side infrastructure changes report. And that's to kind of have the designers let the park know what would need to be changed to support the new vessel as well.

So just on the crane subject. The spec, draft spec says empty containers. I agree with it doesn't say what size containers or stacking containers, but it also says empty containers. Would you guys consider, requirement to have to lift fully loaded containers. So that would be like easier, wouldn't it?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

It would make life easier, but it would also require bigger initial equipment, right?

Audience:

On board the ship, right? It's just the marginal increase for, I'm just wondering how much benefit there.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Yeah, I don't know if we have an answer to that. It's been thought about it. I think it needs to be flushed out a little bit more. I think that's a good point.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Well, what plays isn’t it, it’s not necessarily just, you know, from the dock to the ship on the dock. It’s where it's coming from, in the sort of multiple, getting here and then especially when it gets out to the island, you know how it’s distributed. Various, various things so that all kind of. The decisions we make, as you'll see when we walk around, you know, we've been using cargo carts. What are they, six or seven feet by three feet? That the ship is basically been using since we started. A lot of island infrastructure is really built around getting those carts, you know, the various places and stuff like that. And so it's a matter of sometimes fitting the new stuff into the current infrastructure paradigm that they have going out on the island as well.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

That was a great way to say it. The infrastructure at the island is limited to certain equipment at the moment, certain paths that are sized for these carts and for the equipment there. And I don't think there's necessarily, saying we can't change some operations, but the thought process of where we had been during this draft phase of design was fitting a lot of it into the existing infrastructure out there as well.

I think my concern with a fully loaded container is then when it's on the dock, what do you do with it then?

Audience:

That's what I was thinking. I don't think you want to be loading fuel into empty containers on the ship.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Before I answer more, I want to read kind of how I how we specified it in in the basis of design. There have been conversations about it and I don't know if we specified it yet. And so I don't think we want to

Audience:

It says empty in there for the for the fuel. But she's right. It would save as much as hazardous, it would just reduce risk really

[The Basis of Design] says containers can be lifted onto deck empty and then filled, so it doesn't specify it has to be empty and so they can be empty in that field on deck. So that would change the size of the crane. Basically, yeah.

Audience:

We have done one before with a fully loaded. I know because I didn't know at the time for the fully loaded containers. You can totally do it.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

On a vessel this size?

Audience:

No, another 100 feet longer.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Yeah. And yeah, draft and beam. And I mean, all of those go into it.

Uh, I guess on the island, the fueling stations are pretty much at the dock. And I think we should specify this, which is practice of design. That's something to consider as well, but yeah, it can be loaded empty and then filled or it cannot.

Audience:

So part of the design process.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Yeah.

Audience:

How are fuel tanks moved on the island currently?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

There are tanks on the island that gets pumped from Ranger III or currently there is a gasoline barge up to a tank farm.

Sorry, I'm getting a little, I'm trying to toe the line of what I'm allowed to say and what I cannot say, so if I can't answer questions, apologies.

So to that, you know, we're trying to fit all of these things in the shift that is generally about 175 feet long, beam up to 40 feet we're looking at, and draft up to 13 feet. The draft and the length are limited by the current docks at the islands. Mostly Windigo, probably at this point.

Gross tonnage, we're looking to have no more gross tonnage than this ship, which is 648 gross tons, so Subchapter H boat generally. Generally we don't want change in licensure. So that's kind of how we specified it now in the draft.

And the 40 feet. How did you get to come up with?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

So Ranger III beam. It's 33 feet, you know, looking at just the idea.

Audience:

That's more flexible number? The other ones are fixed?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Yeah. Yeah.

Audience:

With the increase in traffic there, so any issues with the changing lake levels?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Yeah. Currently we're just finishing up a project at Rock Harbor that is public. The Volpe Center working with the park to extend the dock Rock Harbor 15 feet actually to get the ship into deeper water. One of the reasons was to get into deeper water because of lower lake levels in the last several years.

So yes, it's a, there's thought behind that, so yeah.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Swing back one dock. I take the Ranger III to Windigo. We literally have to run it all the way up into the mud and then get there just to kind of get to the ship to fit in there.

Audience:

[Question about crew size]

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

We have an idea. I don't think we've specified it yet. We've specified the number of staterooms.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

The park’s interest is really to not have the crew be any bigger than we have on Ranger III. In our high operating season, we carry 9, sometimes 10.

Audience:

On board full time?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Not full time because we're only underway out at the island a couple nights a week, so most of the crew actually lives here. But what we do have had quarters here though

On board, what are they, single bunk, double bunk?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Most everybody you know has their own room on board. There are some rooms down in the crew quarters that do have bunk beds, but we just run everybody in their own release days and then actually we spilled over into a couple of the passenger state rooms just to accommodate that.

Audience:

Galley on board?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Yeah, full operating galley.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

I think we specify that there should be a kitchen and mess for the crew. There is not a separate cook on this vessel.

In terms of construction, looking at all steel. There will have to be some form of ice class. This is to be determined. I believe that it's anticipated the contractor would determine the appropriate ice class for Lake Superior and the typical operating season of the ship.

Audience:

What kind of ice do you guys experience?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Normally in the spring break out when we're opening the island up. So like this, this past spring was pretty, pretty icy. My first trip into Mott Islands, I was moving through four foot thick plate stuff right along the docks there that we had to do a lot of back and ram and all that stuff. It took some time to clear through that, but I've actually got some cool videos I can show you guys did some time lapses and stuff just for fun.

Audience:

During the winter the ship just stays here?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Right.

Audience:

Yeah. So it's just frozen in the canal, three in the winter.

Right.

And speed we specified 15 knot cruise speed. Yesterday we were doing about 13 and a half knots going back and forth.

Audience:

You didn't put HVAC in the specifications.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

That's a good note if we didn't.

And I guess we can talk about that now. One of the features we were looking to include was a way to winterized parts of the ship when it's sitting here. Currently Ranger III has to heat the entire ship throughout the winter. But if there's ways to section off areas so we're only heating sections, that is something that's in the basis of design that we're looking at doing.

Ranger III is heated. It's not cooled, but I have to see. I believe we were specifying the ABS Comfort notation. We were looking at doing, which includes HVAC requirements for passengers and crew.

Audience:

Comfort+ includes concludes Motion fitness criteria. Are you considering that one as well?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Considering yes, passenger comfort as I mentioned is one of the things we were looking at.

Audience:

Umm are you waiting for the results of the seakeeping analysis to decide if you are going to require?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

So I guess we didn't specify Comfort+. We said ABS Guide for Crew and Habitability and ABS Guide for Passenger Comfort is desired.

Audience:

It didn't specify which notation though.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Yeah and so that's something that we will specify or as maybe we'll think about it that way, waiting for something results. Yeah but roll stabilization system is another thing we did specify as being desired as well.

Audience:

Umm, OK. So the trick here is I mean you want the best seakeeping you can get, but you don't want to pay for twice the ship to get it. So therefore you don't want to specify seakeeping criteria ahead of time, because that would…

I don't know. The funding for the ship is like, we can't talk about it I suppose at this point so. And the desire just was generally not for the price it was for, for what we can actually fit in a ship this size with all these other requirements. I'm sure at some point we will figure out, we'll have to specify that.

Audience:

What percentage of the time do you call off the trip since the weather’s too bad?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Rarely do I actually cancel the trip. You know, very often I've got enough flexibility that I can sometimes delay, you know, or instead of doing a round trip, go over one day, come back to stay and come back the next, we'll do a complete round trip in one day kind of stuff just to either get on the front end of the weather in the back end of the weather.

So you know, in the summer time, it's not all that common. In the spring in the fall, I'm, you know, dancing around the forecast just about every week.

Audience:

Are you expecting that seakeeping analysis to predict how often you're gonna have to cancel the trip?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

I would not, would you?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

No, I don't think so.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

And the Ranger schedule is pretty set. If it has to be pushed off due to the weather, then it’ll be pushed off due to weather.

Audience:

So going back to the speed. Is there a requirement for emergency speed?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

I don't think we've discussed that.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Only that maybe we would want one, but we don't necessarily know exactly what that is, but you know, an emergency speed north of our normal operating speed.

To the speed as well. Within this canal there's speed limitations, so designing the ship to, you know, work in the cruising speed at Lake Super, but also not have huge resistance at the speed in this canal is something to think about.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

That's mainly a wake issue. Try to make sure that we're not blowing out docks. All that kind of stuff.

Audience:

The bridge. I saw there's the intermediate stop and it was at the lower level.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Yeah, we specified, I believe that the air draft is just limited by that maximum opening up that bridge.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

It’s about 100 feet. So I think we'd be, we'd have to really be pushing things to get to the max.

Audience:

Does it go under at normal level?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Not at intermediate. We do have to have them raise it for us when they go through.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

They generally raise it to about the 75 foot level.

Audience:

But I never saw them do a partial lift for them.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Uh, I guess for propulsion, obviously EPA compliant. We're looking at diesel electric or diesel shafted.

Audience:

Tier 4 engines?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

EPA compliant. Yep, I mean.

Tier 3 or Tier 4?

I mean, it depends on the engine size, right? So it's purposely specified as the EPA compliant for what is designed.

We are not currently looking at Azipods, although that might change. The concern with Azipods is maintenance locations on Great Lakes.

Audience:

The spec says diesel or direct drive or diesel electric. You have a preference or is it just whatever is more economical?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

I don't know if you have a preference. I think we'll also go to the next bullet point I have here about green technologies where there's funding streams for ships with green technologies. It's something the park would like to consider. I don't know if we will eventually choose to do to go that way, but you know if you're doing a battery hybrid type system, diesel electric might work better than diesel shafted. That type of thing. I think the main point there was the Azipods, if there's no service locations nearby, really trying to avoid that.

Audience:

So within the design process, there be some trade off study discussion about how we get funding to afford the hybrid battery hybrid system. Worth it for the best value for the Park Service.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

And also what are the maintenance implications of that battery hybrid system, lifecycle cost. Yeah. And I believe that propulsion report is one of those deliverables we were looking for.

Audience:

OK. And like that, but there's that we all have to build into that our thought process time. Effort involved in the conversation.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

And so the we specified a couple of the programs that are part of the new infrastructure bill, the BIL, which have not actually been specified what's in those programs yet. It just says we're in the government is going to create these programs. So that's kind of another one of the reasons why we don't really know what we're looking for in that sense yet because it hasn't been specified what we're looking at. And I anticipate some of these things will have to be flushed out before a final scope of work is published.

I wasn't gonna specify anything much more on propulsion at this time. Normal bow thrusters are gonna be needed. And that type of stuff.

Is there any sort of partnership with collaboration with the local university?

There are some partnerships. I know one thing that they've done in the past has to do with the ballast water treatment system. I'm not sure what else you have, but they've studies definitely out on the island.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Yeah, there's a lot of collaboration with Park in general. In research you know out there. Limited what we actually do with the ship short of taking researchers out there and so on and so forth.

Audience:

Does the Ranger III have a bow thruster?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

We do. She does. Yeah.

Audience:

Is it adequate?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Yes.

Audience:

How large is it?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

I have to ask. I probably have that somewhere.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

It's oversized for the actually for the ship.

Audience:

I was watching you turn in the channel, so I wasn’t sure.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Yeah. It's a good bow thruster.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Ranger III has two controllable pitch propellers, but only one rudder in the center of the ship.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Which is a trick for ship handling sometimes. So you really have to go, you have to get some speed to have to have any kind of control.

So I think we did specify two rudders for the next vessel as well. And that’s why.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

And that one goes that one goes almost without saying.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

The bow thruster was not original to the ship.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

No, it was retrofitted. It's right around the time that the new Caterpillar engines were installed.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

And then for cargo, you know there's an exterior deck where you can carry dumpsters and boats and we’re thinking about RO-RO for some lighter RO-RO equipment. Also stability for loading, that is a challenge and shoreside infrastructure is possible there. Going back to the question of can shoreside changes be made.

Bulk materials with crane, containers for, we specified, I guess here for either extra refrigerator space or for gasoline. That's generally what we're looking at for containers. So a few container pads, we don't anticipate multiple huge stacks of containers, though.

Audience:

On the RO-RO front, so you don't do that currently, right? OK. There's a lot of complexity there.

Do you have any, you know, do you have ramps?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

That that would be one of those changes that would, shoreside infrastructure ramps.

Audience:

When you say RO-RO, you don’t mean cars?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

It would generally be like one excavator type thing, up to 20,000 pounds.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Or a small loader.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

It would be in the specification.

Audience:

So not a wheel vehicle?

It could be a forklift type thing.

That is effectively a point load that causes changes. And where can you put you know, what's the period can travel on. It’s complicated.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Yes. Agree. This is again going to the current language and the draft base of design of, as much as we can fit in kind of thing.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

So the Park kind of has all these, you know, grand ideas, sometimes that aren't always gonna jive, right, like construction equipment that they want to bring out there, you know, a small, a small cement truck.

You know, things like that. That would make it a lot easier than having to, you know, figure out how we're gonna get a barge out there to, you know, bring those kind of things or take it on an LCM.

Audience:

The ramp doesn't have to be attached?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Yes. Yeah.

Audience:

Because you put it on that. Should there be a way to? I mean you, you got the ramp to the cargo area there, would you have a forklift that's designed for those carts that?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Same kind of thing. You know, we've tossed around all those kind of ideas and.

Audience:

To be determined.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Yeah, to be determined. And again, part of this industry day is to get the feedback because this is very useful for us as well.

Audience:

Maybe at a super high level then and we're all asking a lot of technical questions about how to design it but, what is the proposal? What did you guys gonna require in the proposal in terms of content like finished design? I doubt it.

No, I probably can't answer this question while we're in the acquisition process. I can't answer questions about a future RFP. It will be specified in a future RFP what we are asking.

Audience:

Will we see a draft and have a comment period?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

I don't know.

Audience:

Consider that.

As far as like the RO-RO loading, for this dock versus on the island, are they the same side?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

So here it varies in a couple different spots and at Mott Island which is the headquarters, there is a lot of equipment does get off and we actually more starboard side to over there. So there would be some potential for roll on one side roll off the other side type of thing we would need dockside infrastructure at all those places that we intended to do that so.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Yeah, we probably need to include some of these things in the RFP.

Audience:

On the construction in bulk materials, do you have a deck area in mind for because you it says 40 foot long, but it doesn't say. That would really, all important determinants and you know how we, you know, when we are someone is under contract and they're developing the GA…

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Yeah what I think will help us in our tour today, you get a view with our current, you know, exterior cargo deck and with the understanding that we would like to increase that perhaps and yeah

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

And to that, in the basis of design we say up to 8 powerboats, and up to 8 six-yard dumpsters. So those have a known size generally, and I think we even specified what size of power boosts there would be.

And knowing that we're not carrying all the bulk cargo and all the boats and all the dumpsters together, we're kind of just doing one or the other at a time.

Audience:

That’s an important nuance, right? What's the configurations? What's in what scenario?

Yeah, in the basis of design I believe, we kind of specified typical loading. Example loading conditions. I guess we didn't specify how many boats at a time, and that that's a good add. But yeah, we plan to. I would anticipate providing details on kind of what needs on that every time.

Audience:

And it says up to 10 long times for each of the boat based on the crane requirement.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

No, it's each of the, I think that's up to 10 long tons total. It's yeah, the boats we specify, I think we specify 18 foot to 20 foot powerboats.

Audience:

Maybe check that.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

So for the public, we take up to 22 foot boats. For the park, a little bit longer, but it's pretty neat little operation that we do. You know, for public that wants to take a boat out there that doesn't want to run it across the open water would Lake Superior. You know we can, you know, pull a boat there right up next to the ship here. We'll use the crane to lift the boat right out off the trailer, put it in the cradle on the deck, and then when you get to Isle Royale, plop it right in the water and then vice versa. It's a nice thing for visitors. So you know to be able to get there and actually have a boat could really, you know, aside from aside from boats, if you don't have the boat you're walking, you know, around there. And there's very little other infrastructure.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

So we say in the cargo spaces up to 8 power boats, two boats up to 22 feet, 6 up to 18 feet. Weight constrained by crank capacity. Per boat. And I’ll specify again, I know there's language in there somewhere, but not all at once. There is a maximum weight of deck loading that we have kind of specified already.

Audience:

Is there a maximum cart weight?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Yes, there is and that's currently driven by the equipment used to pull the carts.

Audience:

So in terms of, you'll have to at some point say this many cards at this weight.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

We do say that many carts. We didn't say the weight, yes.

Typically the loaded carts are right around 1000 pounds so.

Do you count the canoes and kayaks in the powerboats?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

They’re the hand-loaded boat. They kind of just get, currently they get stacked on top of the carts in the cargo area.

Alright, cart bed. So we specify the dimensions of the carts and the number of carts. We didn't specify the weight. So we can do that.

Audience:

It would be helpful to have the max weight and maybe average weight because I know sometimes probably come back empty.

Is an oily water separator required?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

I think we put that as desired.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Yep, I don't remember. I know we've had conversations. I don't remember the answer though. Yeah, it oily water separator is desired. There it is. Yeah.

Trying to think, yeah, we had assumed an 8 to 10 ton crane in the basis of design. I think that also goes toward the empty containers versus a full container. And then yeah, gasoline and AVGAS containers on deck. We would specify how many at a time. I think we might specify how at a time in terms of gallon capacity and also there's propane tanks, cylinders that get stored in a cart and just get placed on deck as well. And I believe we specified how many of those. Yeah. So for gasoline, we said up to 32000 gallons, we specify how many per how much per year. We didn’t specify how many per trip. I really appreciate the feedback from all of you, thank you.

Then, we're kind of sitting here at this food bar. You know for passenger areas looking at different areas for different uses. You'll kind of see that as you walk around. There are a few state rooms on Ranger III right now (4), thinking of a few extra ones for the next for Ranger IV. The other big thing for passenger spaces is accessibility criteria. This ship is not accessible. Trying to make the next vessel accessible would be, it is going to be very important. It, you know, per the ADA guidelines, not every deck and not every space has to be ADA accessible, but it's. And so we, you know, do we put in an elevator, do we not? It's…

Audience How long and wide is this ship?

This one is 165 feet and 33 feet.

Audience

Yeah, ADA and interior volume challenges. It's almost like you're gonna have to have ranking system of, I value this more than I value that. Right?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

So when we're trying to do this much, this diversified stuff with one vessel, you know we recognize that's gonna have to be how it is, right.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

ADA. Not every space area. And to that, per the guidelines, not every passenger space needs to be ADA accessible, right. Even if one deck is but not the other deck. I think that is allowed.

Audience

Staterooms. What are they used for? Because I know when I looked at the website to book tickets, that’s not an option. So is it more used for emergency if somebody injured and you're bringing them back or sick or?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

So we so we currently use them for a variety of different reasons, including the ones you mentioned. If we have to, if we have, you know, let people down for sickness and whatnot for emergencies, or if we need to isolate people and stuff like that. We also use them with the desire for a Ranger IV would be able to use the ship as a platform to sometimes if we have overnight guests coming to the island, sometimes housing out on the island is constrained by just how much they have and how much they allowed to build. Million different rules about housing with the National Park Service. And so to have a, you know, additional housing platform where we could stick some people over.

Audience

You say, but there's no room is you don't wanna camp and you want to come back Wednesday or more specifically, yeah.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Or more specifically. Like if we had some specific group of researchers that they were coming out or contractors for this, that, the other thing, that type of thing, it gives us some flexibility to use the ship as like I said as kind of a platform for operations.

Audience

So we should just design them as operating staterooms.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Yeah, and you'll see what these staterooms look like. It's a little, a small couch and maybe a pull down bed.

That’ll play into it, and if we're gonna get we're talking about the ABS standard.

Then maybe we might not call these staterooms then if they're not being used a state rooms while the ship is operating. It might be able to.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

There might be some desire from the Park.

Audience

So just go for it and then keep included in the conversation, yeah.

It's just with so many different things and you know you're not gonna fit it all in the box. It's hard for anyone to come up with it even initially.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Yeah. No, we fully anticipate it to be a cycle working with the Park and the DOT and any ultimate contractor of trying to figure out what gets in the ship, what doesn't? We know what the base, you know. We know a bare minimum of a lot of things that have to happen, but there's a lot of desirables that might not.

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Talking about desirables too, like you know when we consider not just building the ship for today's needs, but to try to anticipate the needs of park over the over the life cycle of the ship, you know that they potentially at one at some point could want to sell state rooms under way, you know, that type of thing. So at least to be able to have that option.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

That changes things that we're doing. And to the state rooms, the other thing here is there's, for the crew, there's shared staterooms [on Ranger III]. Looking at individual state rooms for all the crew in the next ship and officers.

For Ranger IV, for the officers, individual heads. For crew, shared heads between units. And we specified number of state rooms with heads.

Audience:

Private heads?

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

In the passenger staterooms? I think we talked about that. Private heads.

[Question about tank capacity]

This ship gets fresh water here in Houghton and pumps off black water here in Houghton. Generally every trip or every other trip. I think anticipated similar.

Audience:

[Question about separating gray water and black water]

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Yeah, I don't think they did it that way in 1958.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Just for the last kind of things, we talked about roll stabilization and winterization ability. Ballast water treatment, this park has been working with Michigan Tech and ballast water treatment for years now.

It's important for this part and for the ship to have a ballast water treatment system.

And that was, I mean, that was a lot of highlights of a long base of design. Thank you for all those great questions. I've tried to jot down as many as I could.

If there are more questions, obviously as we go around, still ask them, but you can document them and send them to the contracting officer and we'll publish answers especially can, yes.

Audience:

Your current ABS classification, do you have a range restricted to great lakes? Do you intend to keep that service restriction?

Captain Aaron Persenaire (NPS):

Yeah our COI does for Great Lakes.

Dan Mannheim (Volpe):

Andrew, I think we're done here, and we're gonna start on the tour. So I'm gonna hang up the phone.

Thank you for joining. And for others on the phone. Thank you for joining.

Andrew Josephs (Volpe):

Great. Great. Thanks Dan.