Three boats of three sizes work these routes, and the timetable is built around which one is where.
People notice that the seat count on this website changes from sailing to sailing and assume it is a mistake. It is the most accurate thing on the page.
We run three boats. The big one takes forty eight and does the early commuter runs and the Friday afternoons, because those are the sailings that genuinely fill. The forty two seat boat covers most of the rest. A thirty six seat boat takes the quiet midweek runs, where sending the big one would mean burning fuel for eleven people.
The late express is a fourth and smaller thing again: twenty four seats, direct, four evenings a week, and it exists only because people who finish work in Male at five were otherwise losing an entire evening.
All of that used to live in the counter clerk's head and in a paper list. Now every sailing carries its own number, which is why a boat on this site can show as full and why the counter and the website never disagree. When they did disagree, which was roughly once a fortnight, it was always the customer who paid for it.
The other thing the sizes decide is cargo. A forty eight seat boat has a rack at the back that will take bicycles, boards and a week's shop for a shop. The late express has nowhere at all, which is why that sailing is one bag each and no exceptions.