PORTLAND, Maine — The Florida port of Fort Pierce could be the Nova Star ferry’s home for at least part of the winter, but that’s just one option for the ferry service that just concluded it’s first season of daily trips between Yarmouth, Nova Scotia and Portland. The ferry’s management team still hasn’t settled on how it might continue generating revenue through the off-season.
It’s the next question to answer for the ferry that ended its inaugural sailing season Monday and on Tuesday secured another $5 million (Canadian) subsidy from the province of Nova Scotia, which had already committed $21 million to reviving the ferry service and keeping it afloat.
Gov. Paul LePage, weeks away from finding out whether voters will give him another four years in office, also entered the discussion of the ferry service’s fate, promising provincial officials to work on a bill that would allow the state to extend Nova Star Cruises a $5 million line of credit, though the funding mechanism is unclear.
Also unclear is whether LePage’s opponents would, if elected, support state aid for the ferry service.
David Farmer, a spokesman for Democratic candidate Mike Michaud, said Michaud would first like to see the results of financial and operational reports that Nova Scotia officials have required as a condition of the ferry service receiving up to another $5 million.
“It’s important to make sure the operation is financially viable and that the business plan will work,” Farmer said. “You need to make sure that taxpayers aren’t left with a $5 million bill.”
Independent gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the topic Wednesday afternoon, hours before the first televised gubernatorial debate.
As for the Nova Star, docked in Nova Scotia, at least one possibility for its winter retreat is known.
Ken Roberts, a spokesman for Indian River Maritime, said in a phone interview that Nova Star officials have indicated interest in docking at the private marina his company manages in Fort Pierce, a town southeast of Orlando and north of Palm Beach.
“That’s our understanding,” Roberts said, when asked whether the latest ship identification data sent from the Nova Star is correct in indicating Fort Pierce as the ship’s next stop.
Dennis Bailey, a spokesman for Nova Star Cruises, had a different reaction to that report from the Automatic Information System, which said the Nova Star is scheduled to arrive in “Fort Peirce,” an apparent typo, at 1 p.m. Oct. 22.
“Weird,” Bailey said in an email. “Those sites are not always accurate.”
To double-check those details, Roberts of the Florida marina on Wednesday handed the phone to Indian River’s general manager John Beale, who told a reporter he was last notified the ship would arrive in Fort Pierce on Nov. 4, but he couldn’t say anything about the ship operator’s plans.
The town is near the Bahamas, the country where the Nova Star is flagged. That country is popular for registering cruise ships, and most ships operating in the United States are flagged in foreign countries, allowing the ship to fall under that country’s less demanding regulations.
Erick Gill, a spokesman for St. Lucie County’s Office of Tourism, said that he wasn’t aware of any plans to operate a new cruise ship line between Fort Pierce and other destinations but that cruise ships with casinos aboard — such as the Nova Star — have tried to make a go of service there in the past.
“It’s a tough venture to make a go of unless you have a very large ship,” Gill said.
The Nova Star is about 530 feet long with a maximum capacity of about 1,200 passengers.
Beale said no definite agreements have yet been signed with the Nova Star.