Heavier passengers lead to new load limits for ferries
The number of passengers that the Casco Bay Lines ferries can carry as they run between Portland and the islands must be recalculated to accommodate the higher average weight of people these days.
Since the 1960s, the U.S. Coast Guard has used the average weight of 160 pounds to determine vessel stability. But now the Coast Guard says passenger limits of commercial passenger boats must be adjusted to reflect a more realistic average weight of 185 pounds. Starting Dec. 1, all ferries and charter boats are required to reassess their passenger limits.
Nick Mavodones, Casco Bay Line's operations manager and a Portland city councilor, says Casco Bay Lines is investing about $10,000 to pay engineers to recalculate new weight limits for two boats, with a similar expense in the spring to calculate two more boats. The carrying capacity of one of the boats, the Maquoit II, has already been calculated at the higher weight, he explains.
While Casco Bay Lines waits for the final order on passenger limits from naval engineers, two of the Casco Bay Line ferries, the Machigonne II and Aucocisco III, will see temporary reductions in passenger limits, from about 400 to under 350. Two other smaller boats have also been decreased in the interim. But Mavodones says he doesn't believe the final passenger limits will drop by as much.
He says so far the heavier passengers haven't led to any noticeable problems on the ferries. "Other than being able to observe people, including myself, get heavier, we've never had any stability issues," he says.
The new Coast Guard regulation is aimed at preventing tragic accidents like the one in New York's Lake George in 2005, when a fall-foliage tour boat tipped over, killing 20 people, many of them elderly. Investigators say the boat flipped in part because it was overloaded.
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