Bay Ferries says the Cat ferry should be back in service tomorrow.
It had to cancel its schedule yesterday do to another engine problem.
CEO Mark Macdonald tells us the issue with the engine, that was discovered Monday, was identified last night.
“As son as we knew we had a problem on Monday we mobilized two crews, one being our technical managers are qualified engine maintenance personnel out of Yarmouth and Nova Scotia to Portland and secondly, a team from MTU, the engines manufacturers who are based in Virginia. Both teams got to Portland yesterday (Tuesday) and commenced the immediate assessment of the problem. By early last evening we did identify what we believe is the problem which ties to one of 20 cylinders in the starboard inner main engine of the ship.”
MacDonald says the necessary tools and parts will be on hand today and repairs should be completed later in the day.
“Likely tomorrow morning in Portland we will have some kind of a sea trial, assuming the repair gets affected today, then the intent would be to pick the schedule mid-day tomorrow, tomorrow being Thursday. Bear in mind, today, Wednesday, is a day that we normally wouldn’t be sailing. All of this remains subject to confirmation as we go but that’s the way it look st this point.”
He says if all goes well with a sea trial tomorrow, the Cat will be back to its schedule by mid-day tomorrow.
The high speed vessel will still only operate on three of its four engines.
MacDonald says a problem with the outer starboard engine hasn’t been fixed yet.
“The nature of that problem is that it can’t be fixed without significantly interrupting the season because it’s a more significant problem involving a crankshaft in the engine. That one we are putting off until the end of season. Because we’re operating on three engines, albeit at very good speed on three engines, it makes the consequence of a second problem a little bit more difficult but that’s we’re working our way through and that’s the nature of this business.”
MacDonald says it’s hard to determine yet if the engine problems negatively impacted passenger numbers.
“We’re still very optimistic. We’ve passed the amount of total sales that we had for last year already. Sometime last week we passed that magic number. Our intent is to hold nothing back over the second half of the season in terms of future sales and see where we can get this to. Customers have been great, our crew and those who support us on shore like Sip at Sea have been bending over backwards to make this a success despite the challenge which we had with the first engine incident. i cannot say enough how hard people have been working and how cheerfully they’ve been doing so to work us through this. It’s full steam ahead, pedal to the metal, whatever metaphors you want. we’re going to give this our best shot.”
He says the engine manufacturer will absorb all of the costs associated with both of the engine repairs.
