Maine Maritime seeks relief from fuel costs

CASTINE – As students at Maine Maritime Academy prepare to leave for the annual training cruise next week, administrators are working with officials from other state maritime academies to seek some federal fuel assistance to offset the increasing burden on the academies’ budget.

President Leonard Tyler told trustees Friday that he and other academy administrators met this month with officials from the U.S. Maritime Administration, known as MARAD, to encourage it to provide additional funding for state academies, specifically for fuel costs.

“We’re trying to get an increase in the appropriation to the state maritime academies including more than $350,000 allotment for fuel supplements,” Tyler said.

They also are seeking an increase in the allotment for maintenance on the training ships from $200,000 to $500,000. That allotment has not been changed since 1998, he said.

The federal fuel supplement would ease the impact of rising fuel costs on MMA’s budget. Fuel costs for the cruise have more than doubled over the past two years, according to Capt. Jeff Loustauneau, the commandant of midshipmen and vice president for enrollment at MMA.

“The fuel budget two years ago was about $185,000,” Loustauneau said Friday. “This year it will be close to $440,000.”

Previously, the academy has been able to lock in lower prices ahead of time for the cruise, but in the current market, suppliers are increasingly unwilling to guarantee prices, he said.

Planning for this year’s cruise, officials initially scheduled a stop in Aruba for fuel. The supplier, however, would not guarantee a price, so they have planned to stop in Boston instead where they were able to get a locked-in price for just 14 days. It will be the ship’s first port on the cruise. They’ll take on enough fuel there to get them through this cruise and to their first port on the 2006 training cruise.

According to Loustauneau, the ship begins burning diesel fuel as soon as the students board. Although the training vessel State of Maine will leave the dock next Wednesday, the students came on board and the cruise officially started Friday.

“We’re using fuel every day starting today without ever turning the propeller,” he said. “And the thing is, we use the cheapest fuel to turn the propellers.”

Escalating fuel costs have not resulted in cutbacks in the cruise program, although Loustauneau said they do take some cost-saving measures at sea including drifting on occasion.

But academy students need to have a specific amount of sea time in order to meet the requirements for their federal maritime licenses.

They must have 120 days at sea on the academy training vessel.

If fuel costs continue to rise, there’s some question how long the academy could continue to do that, he said.