September 27, 2004
Rolling on the river | Bangor welcomes day cruises on the Penobscot once again, hoping this time it's for good
By Mike Woelflein
For the first time in five years, a day cruise ship sailed out of Bangor this summer when the 65-foot Roxy Leigh carried passengers up and down the Penobscot River. Hailed as good news for the city's waterfront redevelopment, the cruises are also an idea that's been tried, and has failed, before. This time, Bangor officials and other waterfront proponents are hoping it works. Another cruise operator thinks it might, and may join the flotilla next year. For Chris Hamor and Roger Johnson, though, making the Roxy Leigh a viable business is a matter of necessity.
Hamor and Johnson, owners of Mid Coast Marine in Winterport, about 11 miles downriver from Bangor, bought the Roxy Leigh at auction in 2001 for $20,000. Hamor says they've since sunk another $150,000 into her. Last summer, the boat sailed out of Bucksport, often with very small crowds. This summer, Mid Coast Cruises, a division of Mid Coast Marine, struck a deal with the city of Bangor ˆ which has long supported the idea of scheduled cruises on the waterfront ˆ to operate there, and had some success. But even the new operators admit it's a long way from this year's efforts to profitability.
"It's going to work," Hamor says. "These things just take time. We have a long way to go, but it's coming. There's a lot of potential, especially as more and more people come down to the waterfront."
History indicates it won't be easy. The Roxy Leigh herself, previously known as the River Dog, plied the Penobscot in 1998 and 1999, but both the local businessman who started the cruises and the city, which ran them for a short time, couldn't keep her going. This time, Mid Coast and city officials believe the plan is better, and the timing is right. After three years of the National Folk Festival, and with the city's waterfront redevelopment efforts finally coming into focus, the area gradually is drawing more visitors. And the new owners believe they'll be able to keep maintenance and other costs down.
If it all works, the city will get its scheduled cruises, and Mid Coast will turn a profit, largely through its lucrative charter business, which has already proven popular for private outings. The city leases Mid Coast dock space for just $600 a year and is "helping any way we can, though we can't promote it," according to economic development director Rod McKay.
"It's a feasible operation, very definitely," McKay says. "Now is the time to do it. We're getting more people down to the waterfront, and we need amenities to draw even more. This can be a real attraction."
The public cruises kicked off in late June, and ran for much of the summer on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Mid Coast plans to continue Saturday and Sunday runs through September and into October. The three-hour tours on the two-deck, 150-passenger boat travel downriver to Winterport and back, featuring a full bar, sandwiches and snacks. The ship often sailed with as few as 10 to 15 passengers. But Saturdays and Sundays averaged about 35 passengers at $15 each, enough to break even for the trip. Mid Coast blames the poor showing on a lack of awareness about the cruises ˆ "Marketing was tough, partly because we spent so much on the boat," says Ed Badershall, manager of Mid Coast Cruises ˆ and this year's wet and less-than-warm summer.
"This year we broke even with the crew and the fuel and those kinds of costs," Badershall says. "Now, we need to start making back the money that we invested in the boat, and then we'll be able to see some profit. The potential is there, and it will happen."
A tangled history
They won't be the first to try. The Mount Katahdin, run by Frank Foss, had a successful three- or four-year run with dinner and dance cruises in the mid-1980s. But Foss grew weary of the slow pace of waterfront redevelopment in Bangor and eventually stopped his operation, McKay says.
In 1998, former Sea Dog Brewery owner Peter Camplin decided to try again, leasing the River Dog from a Florida company with the help of a community development loan from the city, according to McKay. Camplin's company operated the boat for the 1998 season, but, as bankruptcy court documents would later show, Sea Dog wasn't doing well. (Sea Dog eventually declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2002, closed, then was re-opened in 2003 by the owners of Portland-based Shipyard Brewing.) Shortly before the 1999 season, Camplin decided against operating the boat. The city, wanting to keep the cruises going and owed $50,000 by Camplin, according to newspaper accounts at the time, exercised its option to take over the lease.
The city got the boat into the water late in the season, running it with a part-time crew. The Bangor City Council endorsed the idea, and even considered an option to buy the boat at the end of the lease, but decided against it. That led to a strange chapter in the boat's history. The lease called for the city to return the boat to its Florida owners, but the company, Marine Transportation Inc., didn't seem interested in getting it back. Eventually, the boat ended up being auctioned in federal court.
"We'd have been all right if we kept going," McKay says. "But the council didn't want to be in the cruise business. We had an offer to sell it" ˆ the Bangor Daily News reported that Dorian Klam, a Bangor businessman, offered the city $92,000 for the River Dog ˆ "but we never could, because we never really owned it."
The boat was appraised at $190,000, and the city could have bought it from Marine Transportation for $110,000, based on the terms of the original lease. Mid Coast finally picked it up at auction for $20,000, but the boat needed a lot more work than Hamor ever imagined. "It was only two months out of certification" for public cruises, Hamor says. "But when I called the Coast Guard to renew, they just laughed. But we kept moving forward, even though we wondered if we'd ever get our money back."
Mid Coast replaced the whole stern, about half of the planking on the hull, many of the ribs in the hull structure and almost all of the decking. Hamor's crew put in a new generator and a new interior for the lower deck, and spruced everything up with new paint and railings. Finally, fully certified through 2006, they launched the Bucksport cruises in 2003, but quickly found the town didn't have the population or tourist traffic to support them.
Badershall says he heard Bangor might be interested, and contacted city officials. Both sides believe Bangor to be a better venue than Bucksport because of its larger population, the waterfront project and the events the city hosts there. During the National Folk Festival this year, hundreds of people paid $5 each for a half-hour cruise along the waterfront. Not surprisingly, it was the best-grossing weekend of the year.
Meanwhile, Mid Coast's other operations seem to make it an ideal company to run the cruises. A full-service boatyard offering storage, docking and mooring services, repairs and painting, the company can maintain and repair the Roxy Leigh at cost. Hamor's wife, Michelle, is running the bar and catering. And the marina is successful, about to double the size of its indoor storage and repair facilities, and set to house more than 100 boats this winter, from 20-foot runabouts to large yachts.
Another captain on the river?
Just as the Roxy Leigh wasn't the first cruise boat to call Bangor home, she may not be the last. Mike Kiernan, who owns Bath-based Long Reach Cruises, is considering expansion into the market next summer. Kiernan's company runs tours of the Kennebec River and on Sebago Lake. Long Reach's business model calls for refurbishing a boat every winter, then introducing it in a new market every spring, and Kiernan's thinking of bringing a 50-foot, 64-passenger refurbished Navy launch to Bangor in 2005.
"There's a lot of potential," Kiernan says. "It's a similar environment to what we've developed, where these rivers were once the principal highways for Maine. There's a lot of history that you can share, and a lot of stories. Plus, both rivers provide a very scenic opportunity for people."
With a top speed of 12 knots, Kiernan's boat would be faster than the Roxy Leigh, making some of the routes he's thinking about ˆ Bangor to Bucksport for lunch, Bucksport to Bangor for shopping ˆ well within reach. There may be stops at Fort Knox in Bucksport, or Fort Point State Park in Stockton Springs.
Kiernan doesn't think he'd provide direct competition with the Roxy Leigh. "The format would likely be completely different," he says. "If there are more things to do on the waterfront, that seems like it'd be good for everybody."
With or without Long Reach in the picture, the key for Mid Coast to make a profit, according to Hamor, Badershall and even McKay, will be the charter business. This year, the boat hosted weddings, company and groups outings, school and senior groups. For $325 an hour, groups of up to 150 people can use the boat, and many choose to take longer cruises. Dennis Foodservice, a Bangor-based wholesale food distributor, chartered the boat for six hours for a cruise from Winterport to Castine in 2003.
"It was a great day," says Ron Dennis, the company's president. "We feel we can build camaraderie and loyalty with an event like that, and the cruise was perfect. We brought some food because that's our business, we had an open bar and it went really well. Everyone loved it. We'd definitely do it again."
Badershall says several civic and school groups who chartered the boat this year have already contacted him about making annual excursions. Even McKay says he was pleasantly surprised by the number of charter requests the city received when it was running the boat.
"You get 100 people out there having a good time, and the word of mouth spreads pretty fast," Badershall says. "It went really well this year, considering how much marketing we did" ˆ not much, he says, beyond a few brochures and a rudimentary website. "We're very hopeful."
For 2005, Mid Coast is planning more advertising, including radio ads in the Bangor area. The company also plans to beef up its brochures and print more of them, to be distributed downtown and at hotels and motels in the area. The company is hoping to do some television, too. "The best thing we can do is keep our schedule, keep bringing people out on the river and showing them a good time," Badershall says.
Hamor and Johnson, owners of Mid Coast Marine in Winterport, about 11 miles downriver from Bangor, bought the Roxy Leigh at auction in 2001 for $20,000. Hamor says they've since sunk another $150,000 into her. Last summer, the boat sailed out of Bucksport, often with very small crowds. This summer, Mid Coast Cruises, a division of Mid Coast Marine, struck a deal with the city of Bangor ˆ which has long supported the idea of scheduled cruises on the waterfront ˆ to operate there, and had some success. But even the new operators admit it's a long way from this year's efforts to profitability.
"It's going to work," Hamor says. "These things just take time. We have a long way to go, but it's coming. There's a lot of potential, especially as more and more people come down to the waterfront."
History indicates it won't be easy. The Roxy Leigh herself, previously known as the River Dog, plied the Penobscot in 1998 and 1999, but both the local businessman who started the cruises and the city, which ran them for a short time, couldn't keep her going. This time, Mid Coast and city officials believe the plan is better, and the timing is right. After three years of the National Folk Festival, and with the city's waterfront redevelopment efforts finally coming into focus, the area gradually is drawing more visitors. And the new owners believe they'll be able to keep maintenance and other costs down.
If it all works, the city will get its scheduled cruises, and Mid Coast will turn a profit, largely through its lucrative charter business, which has already proven popular for private outings. The city leases Mid Coast dock space for just $600 a year and is "helping any way we can, though we can't promote it," according to economic development director Rod McKay.
"It's a feasible operation, very definitely," McKay says. "Now is the time to do it. We're getting more people down to the waterfront, and we need amenities to draw even more. This can be a real attraction."
The public cruises kicked off in late June, and ran for much of the summer on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Mid Coast plans to continue Saturday and Sunday runs through September and into October. The three-hour tours on the two-deck, 150-passenger boat travel downriver to Winterport and back, featuring a full bar, sandwiches and snacks. The ship often sailed with as few as 10 to 15 passengers. But Saturdays and Sundays averaged about 35 passengers at $15 each, enough to break even for the trip. Mid Coast blames the poor showing on a lack of awareness about the cruises ˆ "Marketing was tough, partly because we spent so much on the boat," says Ed Badershall, manager of Mid Coast Cruises ˆ and this year's wet and less-than-warm summer.
"This year we broke even with the crew and the fuel and those kinds of costs," Badershall says. "Now, we need to start making back the money that we invested in the boat, and then we'll be able to see some profit. The potential is there, and it will happen."
A tangled history
They won't be the first to try. The Mount Katahdin, run by Frank Foss, had a successful three- or four-year run with dinner and dance cruises in the mid-1980s. But Foss grew weary of the slow pace of waterfront redevelopment in Bangor and eventually stopped his operation, McKay says.
In 1998, former Sea Dog Brewery owner Peter Camplin decided to try again, leasing the River Dog from a Florida company with the help of a community development loan from the city, according to McKay. Camplin's company operated the boat for the 1998 season, but, as bankruptcy court documents would later show, Sea Dog wasn't doing well. (Sea Dog eventually declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2002, closed, then was re-opened in 2003 by the owners of Portland-based Shipyard Brewing.) Shortly before the 1999 season, Camplin decided against operating the boat. The city, wanting to keep the cruises going and owed $50,000 by Camplin, according to newspaper accounts at the time, exercised its option to take over the lease.
The city got the boat into the water late in the season, running it with a part-time crew. The Bangor City Council endorsed the idea, and even considered an option to buy the boat at the end of the lease, but decided against it. That led to a strange chapter in the boat's history. The lease called for the city to return the boat to its Florida owners, but the company, Marine Transportation Inc., didn't seem interested in getting it back. Eventually, the boat ended up being auctioned in federal court.
"We'd have been all right if we kept going," McKay says. "But the council didn't want to be in the cruise business. We had an offer to sell it" ˆ the Bangor Daily News reported that Dorian Klam, a Bangor businessman, offered the city $92,000 for the River Dog ˆ "but we never could, because we never really owned it."
The boat was appraised at $190,000, and the city could have bought it from Marine Transportation for $110,000, based on the terms of the original lease. Mid Coast finally picked it up at auction for $20,000, but the boat needed a lot more work than Hamor ever imagined. "It was only two months out of certification" for public cruises, Hamor says. "But when I called the Coast Guard to renew, they just laughed. But we kept moving forward, even though we wondered if we'd ever get our money back."
Mid Coast replaced the whole stern, about half of the planking on the hull, many of the ribs in the hull structure and almost all of the decking. Hamor's crew put in a new generator and a new interior for the lower deck, and spruced everything up with new paint and railings. Finally, fully certified through 2006, they launched the Bucksport cruises in 2003, but quickly found the town didn't have the population or tourist traffic to support them.
Badershall says he heard Bangor might be interested, and contacted city officials. Both sides believe Bangor to be a better venue than Bucksport because of its larger population, the waterfront project and the events the city hosts there. During the National Folk Festival this year, hundreds of people paid $5 each for a half-hour cruise along the waterfront. Not surprisingly, it was the best-grossing weekend of the year.
Meanwhile, Mid Coast's other operations seem to make it an ideal company to run the cruises. A full-service boatyard offering storage, docking and mooring services, repairs and painting, the company can maintain and repair the Roxy Leigh at cost. Hamor's wife, Michelle, is running the bar and catering. And the marina is successful, about to double the size of its indoor storage and repair facilities, and set to house more than 100 boats this winter, from 20-foot runabouts to large yachts.
Another captain on the river?
Just as the Roxy Leigh wasn't the first cruise boat to call Bangor home, she may not be the last. Mike Kiernan, who owns Bath-based Long Reach Cruises, is considering expansion into the market next summer. Kiernan's company runs tours of the Kennebec River and on Sebago Lake. Long Reach's business model calls for refurbishing a boat every winter, then introducing it in a new market every spring, and Kiernan's thinking of bringing a 50-foot, 64-passenger refurbished Navy launch to Bangor in 2005.
"There's a lot of potential," Kiernan says. "It's a similar environment to what we've developed, where these rivers were once the principal highways for Maine. There's a lot of history that you can share, and a lot of stories. Plus, both rivers provide a very scenic opportunity for people."
With a top speed of 12 knots, Kiernan's boat would be faster than the Roxy Leigh, making some of the routes he's thinking about ˆ Bangor to Bucksport for lunch, Bucksport to Bangor for shopping ˆ well within reach. There may be stops at Fort Knox in Bucksport, or Fort Point State Park in Stockton Springs.
Kiernan doesn't think he'd provide direct competition with the Roxy Leigh. "The format would likely be completely different," he says. "If there are more things to do on the waterfront, that seems like it'd be good for everybody."
With or without Long Reach in the picture, the key for Mid Coast to make a profit, according to Hamor, Badershall and even McKay, will be the charter business. This year, the boat hosted weddings, company and groups outings, school and senior groups. For $325 an hour, groups of up to 150 people can use the boat, and many choose to take longer cruises. Dennis Foodservice, a Bangor-based wholesale food distributor, chartered the boat for six hours for a cruise from Winterport to Castine in 2003.
"It was a great day," says Ron Dennis, the company's president. "We feel we can build camaraderie and loyalty with an event like that, and the cruise was perfect. We brought some food because that's our business, we had an open bar and it went really well. Everyone loved it. We'd definitely do it again."
Badershall says several civic and school groups who chartered the boat this year have already contacted him about making annual excursions. Even McKay says he was pleasantly surprised by the number of charter requests the city received when it was running the boat.
"You get 100 people out there having a good time, and the word of mouth spreads pretty fast," Badershall says. "It went really well this year, considering how much marketing we did" ˆ not much, he says, beyond a few brochures and a rudimentary website. "We're very hopeful."
For 2005, Mid Coast is planning more advertising, including radio ads in the Bangor area. The company also plans to beef up its brochures and print more of them, to be distributed downtown and at hotels and motels in the area. The company is hoping to do some television, too. "The best thing we can do is keep our schedule, keep bringing people out on the river and showing them a good time," Badershall says.
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