A continual failure to maintain Government’s fleet of fast ferries has left them in a potentially hazardous condition, it has been claimed.A lack of cash has been blamed for the neglect, with sources claiming that maintenance work “has not been carried out to the level that it should have been” over a number of years.And yesterday Sinclair Samuels of Marine & Ports acknowledged that engine malfunctions on the vessels made them a potential hazard on the water.The Royal Gazette understands that only three of the fleet of six fast ferries are currently operational, while two out of three tug boats are also out of action. At least one ferry — Serenity — has been out of the water for at least a year, and is unlikely to be back on duty before the end of the summer.Mr Samuels, who is the Bermuda Industrial Union’s Marine & Ports divisional president, said workers had attempted to highlight maintenance issues with management for several years. In 2010, Government acknowledged that the fleet was in need of an upgrade after staff went on strike over the problem of continual breakdowns.Despite that dispute, Mr Samuels claimed management continues to adopted a short-term, band-aid approach to keeping the fleet afloat.He said he had a dossier of mechanical failures dating back to last year that had still not been properly addressed by management.And he said that one of the ferries was recently involved in an accident due to a jet propulsion malfunction — and that the other five ferries were all susceptible to the same technical glitch.“It’s just been a band-aid approach to maintenance,” Mr Samuels said.“Management continue to say that they have no money but really at the moment it’s a case of throwing good money after bad.”He said that ferry captains were pouring vast quantities of oil and other lubricants into the engines to keep them running — while the causes of mechanical faults was continually being overlooked.And he said that there were concerns about the ferries’ jet propulsion systems, which, if not working properly, can result in a sudden drop in power, making the vessels extremely difficult to manoeuvre.“There are some safety issues there, it’s definitely a problem and it does mean that they can be a hazard,” Mr Samuels said.According to Mr Samuels, Serenity, which was added to the ferry fleet in 2002 at a cost of $2.5 million, was placed on dry dock last February for a refit in order for seating capacity to be increased. The project was meant to take three months.The vessel was stripped down “to bare metal”, but while staff have been able to give Serenity’s exterior a new coat of paint, the inside remains gutted.“They just don’t seem to have the ability to get the job done,” Mr Samuels said.“This is now a long-term job and it’s going to take several months before she’s back in the water.”Last month Government announced plans to hire a private ferry to operate between Dockyard and St George’s this summer, in an attempt to ease the workload of the current fleet.Although Marine & Ports workers staged a walkout over that plan, the BIU later revealed it had encouraged the proposal, at least in principle.“We said that, if you didn’t bring in some kind of vessel it would be crazy because the current vessels wouldn’t make it,” Mr Samuels said.“The members are in the trenches waiting to do the work they’ve been asked to do. Sometimes the management give orders that are contradictory to what the workers on the ground know. A lot of those decisions have put the ferry service back.”Another source denied that the ferries were potentially hazardous, but acknowledged that they had not been properly maintained for several years.The source said that the ferries had been involved in several accidents since their deployment — and that mechanical failure could not be ruled out as at least a partial cause for some of those accidents. But they added that the ferries operated within strict safety parameters, and the public were not at risk.“The problem is, these ferries need a very, very high level of maintenance and, while they do get some maintenance, it hasn’t been carried out to the level that it should have been,” the source said.The Royal Gazette understands that Government has had to pay out millions of dollars in overtime and spare parts for a crew of mechanics to work around the clock keeping the ferries operational. Yesterday this newspaper asked the Ministry of Transport a series of questions concerning the seaworthiness of the fleet. No response was received by press time last night.