A Ferry Tale

A Ferry Tale:

"THE CAT" to CANADA By Charles K Chiodi
(from the Fall 2001 Issue)

    The day started out all wrong. I had a 320-mile stretch of road ahead of me to Bar Harbor, Maine where I was to board "The Fastest Catamaran Ferry to Canada," and I hardly got out of my parking lot when I was hopelessly stuck in Boston traffic. It wasn't even rush hour, yet it took nearly an hour to get through the city. This frustration is more than what a mortal can endure, and I pity those who commute to their jobs every day. Once on the northern side of the city, traffic smoothened out and it was easy driving on Interstate 95, the super highway that connects Miami to Canada. The only time I had to ease off the gas pedal was for the last 45 miles from Bangor to Bar Harbor, in rural Maine. By the time I got to this stretch of the road it was dark and foggy, and prudence required careful navigating. Staying overnight at a nearby motel was a good rest after the long drive, but the beginning of "The Day of Testing the Beast" was not much better. A drizzle and fog set the mood for the next dose of frustration: a long wait at the ticket counter.
    One who travels often on airlines should be resigned to the fact that it is no efficient way to get from point A to point B without a gross amount of delays, bureaucracy and just plain inefficiency. So, I stood in the line that seemed the shortest " six couples " but turned out to be the slowest. It was 7:15 a.m. " before breakfast " and the line wasn't moving more than an inch at a time. There were three windows operating and one that wasn't, but it seemed that I picked the worst of them all. Passengers leaving from other windows kept tripping over my luggage as they passed by toward the dock, but I was determined to see this through and get my ticket, which I had arranged for days ahead of time. The ferry was to leave at 8:00 and at 7:50 I was the next to approach the ticket agent. There were a lot more people to be processed and, finally, a hefty lady came out of an office and assured us that The Cat would not leave without everyone aboard. Perhaps, a cordon such as used at banks and by airlines, would have been useful to direct traffic to the windows and move the process along more efficiently.
    A shuttle bus standing by was a sight of relief, for there were some senior citizens with hip problems and heavy luggage who would have never made it down to the dock, about quarter of a mile away.
    I had seen pictures of The Cat before, but when I came eye-to-eye with this beast, I was taken aback. I have never, in my life, seen a ship this ugly. The Aurora, the gun ship that was involved in the Bolshevik revolution in 1919 was the titleholder for the ugliest piece of metal on water " up until now. But, The Cat, is truly a beast. From profile, she looks more like a huge locomotive that defies the laws of nature" and floats! The seemingly tiny protrusions, half submerged in the water at the bow are the surface-piercing hulls and to the casual observer it must seem like some sort of magic that they can hold up this ship, much less its 500 tons (yes, you read it right) of cargo! The white center bow looks like the upturned nose of a giant pointing the way for the captain of which way to go. When you watch The Cat depart, the blunt, square stern doesn't even give a hint of a ship. It looks more like an office building with a big balcony floating out to sea.
    Here is where I must stop my negative observations, lest you conclude that I didn't like The Cat. To the contrary. Never in the history of mankind have the words: "Beauty is only skin deep" been so true. Indeed, The Cat's skin is not beautiful, but¦
    Before The Cat, there was the Bluenose II, a conventional ferry that took a few cars and some people from Bar Harbor, Maine to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. The trip took 7-8 hours and was mostly uncomfortable if any sea was running.
    The Cat can take 780 passengers and 200 cars at 55 mph, transiting the same distance in 2 hours and 45 minutes! Before The Cat, one had a choice of driving a car around the Bay of Fundy "about 600 miles" to get to Yarmouth not much after the slow ferry did.
    The Cat now saves all that driving and gasoline and practically pays for the passage (considering today's gasoline prices).
    Before The Cat you needed to devote a day to get to Nova Scotia, and another day to come home.
    The Cat now offers day cruises on which you can leave Bar Harbor at 8 in the morning, arrive before 11 in Yarmouth; take a sightseeing tour or rent a bike; spend the day, raid the gift shops; have a great meal; then come back to the dock by 8 p.m. and be in Bar Harbor by 10:30 in the evening. That's an adventure never before available with a slow ferry.
    Now, if you think all these are Ferry Tales, here are the hard facts that I can document after crawling all over The Cat, from the Bowels to the Bridge. I talked with most everyone involved, from the Parking Attendant to the Purser; from the Bus Boy to the Bartender; and from the Cook to the Captain.
    Parking: The order of loading vehicles is determined by their size and weight, not necessary the order of their arrival. At the staging area several lanes are marked with numbers and the staff assigns the lane according to the size and approximate weight of the cars. The Cat has different levels of parking for different size vehicles. Four lanes are marked for over 200 cars as you drive on, but only three lanes are used, limited to approximately 180 cars. This is so because this ferry was designed and built by Incat in Australia, where the cars are smaller. Allowing for the larger American cars, the SUVs and minivans of late, capacity is reduced.
    On the day of my visit there was a huge tour bus (the largest one I've ever seen) at the transom end of the "garage," along with a few motor homes, campers, vans with boats on trailers attached, and a row of motorcycles. A kennel-on-wheels was parked in a corner with an electric people mover nearby. There were 96 vehicles aboard, but the lower level appeared only half filled.
    Drivers and occupants are not allowed to stay in the vehicles for safety and security reasons. They must go up onto the passenger decks. This is strictly enforced by security personnel and parking attendants in orange coveralls, and monitored by cameras that are connected to several TV screens on the bridge. The few times motor home occupants tried to beat the rules, but they were caught and escorted "upstairs."
    Strangely enough, however, pets are required to stay in the cars because they are not allowed on the upper decks. Management feels that they are happier in the car they know than in the cannel, which is the alternative. There is plenty of ventilation at the lower decks as long as the car windows are not closed completely.
   Lounges: Split-level decks provide several passenger areas. Airline-type high back soft seating, four seats to a row, several columns are at the stern end of the upper deck. There is the "Wave Piercer" bar and lounge toward the front of the ship. On the lower level is the Buffet where breakfast, lunch or dinner is available at a moderate variety and not-too-high prices. Round and rectangular tables are everywhere for eating, playing cards, or kids to play on. The wide beam of The Cat provides a lot of open areas that resemble a huge meeting hall more than a ship's hull. Large windows offer a vista to the Bay of Fundy; on both ways of my trip I could see nothing but fog, with 50 yards visibility. Close to land, however, the fog lifted and I could see the entry into Nova Scotia from the Bridge and, on the return trip, Bar Harbor's outside islands from the fantail. A contingency of 90 World War II veterans (and their spouses) were aboard the day of my visit, who were all from the warship SS. Franklin. One fellow commented at length on the technical changes of ships he observed from the days of his era, the 1940s.
    The Casino: Rows and rows, totaling 150 of "one-arm bandits" stand in line, like so many soldiers, ready to take your money. Some are more modest and ask you for a quarter, others take $1 tokens which can be purchased in the middle of the room where the cashier is happy to help. The Casino operates only when The Cat is in international waters. The lights and the familiar Las Vegas ding of slot machines don't turn on until about twenty minutes into the trip, then they are turned off before the approach to either harbor. Crescent-shaped sofas with small round tables line both sides of the center aisle and I parked myself there to observe the gambling. Some passengers came, played a small amount and left. Others stuck it out for a bit longer until they became convinced that they will not become rich. However, there was a short, stocky man, obsessed with these wildly flashing machines. He couldn't get enough of them. As soon as we got underway, he lined up in front of three and was going to play them all. The necessary delay of opening annoyed him, for he was pacing back and forth like an expecting father in front of a hospital's delivery room. He let out a sight once in a while to release his frustration, and as soon as the lights of the boxes came on, he pounced on them. He was feeding dollar-tokens into all three slots in front of him, his pudgy fingers hitting the buttons as fast as he could swing his body from one machine to the other.
    The first round netted him $20 and he was feeling hot to trot! But after 45 tokens he was still not hitting the jackpot and he got upset. With a huff and a puff he moved over to the other side of the room to try other machines. No sooner had he left, when a lady came to one of the machines he had vacated, put in two dollar tokens and harvested $50.
    Hearing the coins flow into the metal bin, the man was rushing back to "his" machine, but the lady wasn't about to leave. That made him very nervous, so he settled for the other two machines next to it, and kept losing his money.
    "Wild Twister" " the one immediately in front of me " and the one I was watching all this time, was my choice to try my luck (or lack of it). The last of my five tokens yielded a $20 win, which I promptly put back, one-by-one, to no avail. With a bucket of pop corn in hand I sat back and continued to observe the variety of people. Some having fun and giving up when they ran out of the money they had allotted for themselves, others turned green with envy when someone's machine went chung-chung-chung! My man never gave up until the last minute, and then still stood around, incredulously, after the machines were shut down, shaking his head in disbelief. I lost count of his, by now so familiar, motion of feeding tokens.
    The Gift Shop: Trinkets and souvenirs galore, it offers a taste of what is to come when you set foot onto Main Street in Yarmouth. Every other shop door leads to souvenirs. But, if you are outbound and can't wait until you get there, or if you forgot someone on your list and are returning, there is always - the Gift Shop.
    Duty-Free Shop: Good buys on liquor and special items. It opens and closes in rhythm with the Casino: open only on international waters.
    Outside Deck: There is none to speak of. At the speed this catamaran travels, outside passage would be very uncomfortable, and even dangerous. There are two small open areas between the main deck and the bridge forward, used by smokers who can't wait to light up before getting to shore. There is No Smoking throughout the ship. I would have pity on these poor souls if they had to take the Bluenose and couldn't smoke for eight hours! It is also this area where one prepares for disembarking. The only other open space is at the back of the ship which resembles a huge balcony. Before leaving and during docking it would be a nice place to stand if it weren't for the choking diesel exhaust. During the passage one would need to have foul-weather gear on, for the mist created by the huge wake, a result of the four powerful jets that drive the ship, is so strong that one would get soaked in just a few minutes. However, it is a sight to behold, and on a sunny day there is a rainbow!
    Helicopter Pad: One half of the roof is a helicopter pad, and "I hope we never have to use it" said Purser Ken Winters. "It would be some emergency or disaster, and I'd rather skip that."
    Emergency: Each seat has a life jacket under the cushion, and a video played at the beginning of the voyage instructs its use, just as on airlines. Also, just as on airlines, there are inflatable exit chutes that are deployed within 15 seconds, should an evacuation be necessary. They lead to giant inflatable life rafts, each holding 100 passengers. Normally they are carried in canisters that are deployed from the bridge in an emergency. They also inflate within 15 seconds after hitting the water. According to the Purser, the entire ship can be evacuated within 45 minutes.
    "That's if nobody panics" " I remarked. "Well¦ yes," " he allowed after a brief pause. "I trust, that the ship will stay afloat for at least that amount of time" " I quipped. He changed the subject and we were to go on with the inspection when a man, pushing his wife in a wheel chair wanted to enter the door leading to the chutes, mistaking it for the "washroom." Fortunately, these doors " several of them both on port and starboard side " are securely locked and operated from the bridge, otherwise the poor wife would have been in the biggest "washroom" in 15 seconds.
    The Bridge: The heart of the operation is a countertop that seems a mile long, spanning the beam of the ship, housing dozens of instruments (enough to confuse any passenger), three executive office chairs, of which the center one is reserved for the captain. It looks ordinary enough except for the fact that at the forward end of the right arm rest there is a small wheel, less than four inches in diameter. It looks like a toy out of its element. Don't be mislead! That toy wheel controls this 5,600 ton, 300-foot long, 85-foot wide ship and is responsible to get 780 people and 200 cars to their destination! Forget the pictures of the Ancient Mariner, the Gloucester Fisherman, the huge wooden-spoke wheels with hardy men fighting the elements to steer the ship with. This pinky-finger-operated wheel is the command post. Old, traditional seamanship is lost due to new technology, and famous maritime artists are out of one more subject for their dramatic paintings.
    Approaching the narrow, bending channel to Yarmouth, the chief engineer was reading the course out loud: 039¦ 037¦ 035, and the speed 14 knots, 12 knots¦ etc., down from 42 knots of average cruising speed. I was told, that years ago this was the scene of a tragic accident when, in dense fog, a fishing boat captain who was supposed to stand by until The Cat passed this crucial bend¦ didn't. He sort of "ran the red light" and got wedged between the hulls of this monster. He paid for it with his life.
    Docking was an amazingly smooth operation, thanks to the pivoting jet drives that enable the ship to go sideways. Auxiliary steering stations on both extremities of the bridge assist in this operation. The helmsman can practically stand "next to the dock," look down through the picture window and inch the ship to right where he wants it.
    Then a huge gangway is lowered from the dock to the deck, and hundreds of tourist disembark for a day or a week of adventure. Simultaneously, the cars and campers pour out of the ships belly, heading for the Immigration and Customs stations that are waiting for them. The process is fast and efficient.
    The return trip was somewhat bumpier and I suspect it had to do with the lighter load. I guess wave-piercers perform well when submerged under load. Only 320 passengers, half of the outbound trip, and 80 vehicles were aboard. A ground swell added to the less-than-comfortable ride. Most people walked around as if they were drunk. The passage took place in dense fog and less than 50 yards of visibility. That did put a strain on those on the bridge, but thanks to all the sophisticated Radar and GPS and their precise color screens, the trip was uneventful.
    The crew works long hours, a week at a time. One week on, one week off. The Cat runs the Bar Harbor to Yarmouth route of 100 nautical miles from April until October, when a new crew flies in from Australia that will take her home. During our winter The Cat runs from Melbourne, Victoria to George Town in Tasmania, a five-hour trip of some 165 nautical miles. Next spring the Canadian-based crew flies to Australia and brings The Cat back for the next summer season. The ship makes only two stops en route: in Tahiti and at Panama. The fuel tanks must be huge, for the engines guzzle up 5000 liters of diesel every hour. Since this ferry is designed and built for short runs, there are no overnight accommodations aboard. The three-week passage is rough on the crew for lack of amenities and they are not looking forward to it. But, it is all in a day's (or weeks') work and "it's a job!"