The three newest Staten Island Ferry boats are lemons, with 58 mechanical breakdowns since 2008, Coast Guard reports obtained by The Post reveal.
The worst by far is the 9-year-old Guy V. Molinari, which conked out 25 times due to motors dying, power-supply failures and an electrical fire.
The Molinari’s two sister boats didn’t fare much better.
The Sen. John J. Marchi sputtered out of service a total of 16 times since 2008, and the Spirit of America encountered mechanical problems 17 times, according to documents The Post obtained through a Freedom of Information request.
The three vessels, which cost taxpayers a total of $140 million, were all christened in the last nine years, and unlike the five older vessels in the fleet, they’ve been plagued with problems since the very beginning.
Remarkably, the oldest ferry, the circa-1965 John F. Kennedy, has had no mechanical failures since 2008, according to the Coast Guard reports.
The findings back up a Staten Island Ferry captain’s recent claims that the Molinari-class ships “put people at risk” because skippers can’t steer or stop the ferries when drives and propellers lose power.
“Captains are concerned a big one is coming because of how unreliable the boats are,” he told The Post in April.
And it seems that Coast Guard oversight has done little to prevent chronic mishaps.
Almost half of the incidents — 26 — occurred within a month of an inspection, and 11 happened within a week of being scrutinized.
On Dec. 9, 2010, just an hour after inspection, a blown fuse caused the Molinari’s No. 2 drive to fail, a report revealed.
The Spirit of America’s crew had to evacuate passengers on Feb. 27, 2008, after two propulsion systems failed and the emergency fire pump was found to be out of commission — just 13 days after inspection.
Two engines on the Marchi didn’t work on Nov. 12, 2009, because of a faulty circuit — a failure that came just a week after inspection and four months after the vessel crashed into the St. George ferry terminal, injuring 13 passengers and five crew members.
The Coast Guard declined to comment on why so many breakdowns occurred so soon after their inspections.
The city Department of Transportation is trying to save the lemon fleet by retrofitting the boats.
“The Spirit of America was the first vessel to be retrofitted — it went back into service in early May; the other two vessels will be similarly retrofitted during this upcoming year,” said agency spokeswoman Nicole Garcia.