Halifax to Boston ferry long way from docking

To start with, there is no boat on the horizon and no terminal arrangements. “We’re searching and sometimes having luck finding something that would work, and then it doesn’t work,” said Martin Karlsen, president of Karlsen Shipping Co. Ltd. in Halifax, and the lead partner in American Ferries Inc. “The search is going on, that’s all I can say,” he said.

Karlsen added that terminal arrangements would have to be adapted to the size of the ship and that there are many places in Halifax where such facilities could be easily arranged.

His company has met with the Halifax Port Authority. Mark MacDonald, president and chief executive officer of Bay Ferries Limited is chair of the Port of Halifax’s board of directors. “They are willing, as they should be obviously, to lease facilities whenever anyone brings a project to them,” said Karlsen.

He says the monohull vessel they are looking for would be approximately twice the size of Bay Ferries Cat, which could carry 775 passengers, 250 cars and 14 buses.

The American Ferries Inc. ship would carry approximately 1,300 passengers, 400 cars and 44 tractor trailers. “It’s a different creature altogether than the Cat,” said Karlsen. “This would be a cruise ferry with cabins. Our service would be an overnight service,” he said.

A tentative ticket price of $450 for a one-way ticket for a couple with a car from Boston to Halifax has been proposed. Bay Ferries charged $382 for two passengers with a car one-way from Portland.

The Maine to Yarmouth service received $18.9 million in government funding since 2007 but Karlsen is confident that American Ferries Inc. can stand on its own despite the undoubtedly greater fuel consumption of a larger vessel and longer distance (321 kilometers to Portland compared to 700 km to Boston) “I guess what we are hoping to create with a service between Halifax and Boston is a separate product altogether. It’s a year-round transportation service between Halifax and Boston and we will be hopefully attracting people to come to Nova Scotia year-round. “From the Halifax area they can go to wherever their destination may be,” he said.

Karlsen says his company has been working on the project for several years and is slowly but surely making progress.

The business plan is based on 200,000 passengers and although Bay Ferries Cat numbers have been declining steadily due to several factors (76,000 in 2009), Karlsen remains optimistic. “We will have to attract a lot more people than what is traveling today,” he admitted. “Marketing and sales efforts will obviously have to be substantial when the product is launched,” he said.

Bay Ferries Ltd. spent a minimum of $2 million on its marketing program for 2009.

Would they be hiring former employees of Bay Ferries? “Well, why not?” asked Karlsen. “We will require people, but we have not started that process yet.”

Why not Yarmouth to Boston? “It’s a shorter distance definitely, but this product is for downtown Boston to downtown Halifax. We have not considered any other port in Nova Scotia. “This (project) has absolutely no connection to Bay Ferries decision. It’s not something that was launched recently to outcompete Yarmouth. “This works elsewhere in the world, so we are creating an overnight ferry cruise product that would be a completely different experience than a ferry that just takes people from A to B. You can’t compare the two,” said Karlsen.

Another obstacle that the Halifax-Boston ferry could face is the Roseway Basin Conservation area between Browns and Baccaro Banks, designated by Transport Canada in 2008 as an area to be avoided to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale from ship strikes.

American Ferries Inc. does not operate any ferries presently. Karlsen Shipping Co. Ltd. has been in the shipping business for many years and is associated with Polar Star Expeditions. That company operates an icebreaker that was converted to a passenger ship 10 years ago, mainly in the polar regions.