Bar Harbor-Nova Scotia CAT ferry cancels rest of season
COURTESY / BAY FERRIES LTD.
Bay Ferries Ltd. announced it won’t resume operation of high-speed CAT ferry service between Bar Harbor and Nova Scotia this year, citing the pandemic.
Bay Ferries Ltd. announced Friday that the long-anticipated return of its high-speed ferry service between Bar Harbor and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, will not happen this year.
The Canadian company made the decision after consulting with the province of Nova Scotia and considering the uncertainty over border restrictions and public health travel restrictions, according to a news release.
“This is a difficult, but also now an obvious, decision,” Bay Ferries Chairman ad CEO Mark MacDonald said. “International nonessential travel worldwide has essentially come to a standstill. It is not clear when U.S. operations would be permitted to occur, what opportunity would exist for proper marketing of the service, and what short-term customer demand would be.”
After a 10-year hiatus, Bay Ferries had expected to resume operation of its high-speed CAT passenger ferry between Bar Harbor and Yarmouth last Friday, June 26.
“In the circumstances, we are focused on reduction of cost," MacDonald said.
Bay Ferries had been working with the towns of Bar Harbor and Yarmouth, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency and the Canada Border Services Agency to prepare for the 2020 season.
The CAT will remain at its off-season home in Charleston, S.C., and is expected to re-enter ferry service in spring 2021, the release said.
The service was originally scheduled to start back up in the summer of 2019, but construction and permitting delays at the Bar Harbor ferry terminal prevented that.
Bay Ferries operated the CAT between Bar Harbor and Nova Scotia from 1997 to 2010, but subsequently moved the ferry's Maine berth to Portland. In 2018, the town of Bar Harbor purchased the terminal where the CAT had docked. Bay Ferries indicated it wanted to return the service from Portland to Bar Harbor, and agreed to lease the terminal and pay some of the costs for improving it.
The company began demolition work at the terminal in late winter 2019.
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