By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
Four years after commencing operations, the city’s deep water dock at Gary Paxton Industrial Park received its first cruise ship Tuesday and is scheduled to service the vessel five more times this summer.
The 341-foot Ocean Victory moored at the dock and offloaded about 90 passengers during the stop.
The first cruise ship to dock at the Gary Paxton Industrial Park, the Ocean Victory, is pictured Tuesday. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
The Ocean Victory is operated by Victory Cruises, a company that also runs vessels in the Great Lakes, on the St. Lawrence River and from ports on the Atlantic coast.
The small cruise liner, with a maximum passenger capacity of 186, is the only cruise ship on the schedule for the 400-foot dock this year, said GPIP director Garry White. He manages the industrial park and dock in cooperation with the city harbor department, which handles docking reservations and port security, and is in charge of day-to-day maintenance.
Though public comment at some GPIP board meetings has been divided on the proper use of the dock, White was happy to see some additional revenue for the facility. While cruise line use of the dock won’t be very heavy this summer, he said future use will be a matter of public conversation.
“It’s a multi-purpose facility and according to our own manual… we have to be putting about fifty grand a year away in deferred maintenance so we can continue to do maintenance and potentially replace that dock… We’ve got to make a certain amount of revenue. But that said, you know, there’s been some comments at the GPIP board,” White told the Sentinel Thursday. “They don’t want to see that site taken over by tourism. And so how do we balance our facility to be able to support the commercial fishing industry and support the tourism industry? That will be a community discussion.”
Though usage of the new facility got off to a slow start, revenues have increased year by year as the local fishing fleet makes more use of the dock, White said. In 2018, the dock brought in just $689, but by 2019, that rose above $14,000, he noted. In 2020, revenue climbed again and surpassed $37,000 before rising to $65,000 in fiscal year 2021.
The rate for a 341-foot ship to dock is $1,059, according to the city tariff document. Costs vary by vessel length. Boats 50 feet or less pay 97 cents per foot of length per day. For cruise ships using the dock, the city levies a $4 per passenger head tax.
The large majority of dock users are commercial fishing boats, White said.
“The dock is used almost daily in the summer depending on fisheries openings during the summer and sparsely in the winter by commercial fishing vessels,” White said.
White said half the dock revenue stays within GPIP and half goes to the harbor department.
Since opening in May 2018, dock use has increased to the point that White hopes to hire staff to manage it.
“Right when we first got the dock, there was some concern that nobody was going to use it,” White said. “And I believed somebody would use it and I’m happy that the community is finding value in it.”
Sitka Harbormaster Stan Eliason agreed with White that as the dock gets more use, there will be more management costs.
“More bodies for starters, more people to work security,” Eliason said today.
He noted that the harbor department has taken on extra work in recent days since damage to a docking dolphin at the privately-owned Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal reduced its dock capacity to one cruise ship at a time, instead of two, until repairs can be made.
As for the GPIP dock, Eliason said he believes the process of handling cruise ships there will be smoothed out in the coming months.
“The bottom line here is new ship, new crew. You know, it’s a new process for us out there. There’s a number of hiccups but we can work them out,” he said.
Though White cited some difficulties regarding port security arrangements at the dock’s first use by a cruise ship this season, overall he said the visit went smoothly.
“There were some learning curves that we’re going to have to overcome, but I think as a first run it went well and we’re looking forward to having the dock and having cruise passengers out there,” he said. “And then having a conversation with the community this winter about what’s the appropriate amount of balance between commercial fishing and tourism operations off the dock.”
