PORTLAND — The leader of an earlier play to restore ferry service between Maine and Nova Scotia has revived a similar effort, seeking to challenge the Nova Star ferry service and run what he called “a proper ferry line.”
Bruce McNeil said Monday that his new venture, dubbed Canamerica Cruises, is seeking a vessel that would hold about 700 passengers — 500 fewer than the Nova Star — for an 11-hour voyage at a cost he said would be up to 45 percent cheaper for an adult bringing a car aboard the ferry.
“The route has been dormant way too long to expect a full capacity on a vessel that can carry 1,200 passengers,” McNeil said. “You can’t have a cruise ship on this route, it will never work.”
The province has not solicited requests for other proposals to start the service, but McNeil said he thinks provincial leaders are in a position to call their contract with the Nova Star complete and cut the loss of about $26 million in subsidies to the service this year.
McNeil said his group, which includes an adviser who operated the Scotia Prince ferry that ended its run in 2004, will submit a full proposal to the province in about two weeks.
That adviser is Henk Pols, McNeil said. The company’s president and CEO is Martin Salzedo, the president of a shipping company and a past cruise industry executive.
Dennis Bailey, spokesman for Nova Star Cruises, said the company has no reason to believe that the province is looking to abandon its relationship with the service that just completed its first season of daily runs from Portland to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.
“We’re committed and we think the province is committed,” Bailey said. “We’re trying to revive a route and people have to be a little patient. We’ll get there.”
Sarah Levy McLeod, spokeswoman for Nova Scotia’s Department of Economic Development and Tourism, wrote the province’s focus now is to work with Nova Star cruises as it uses disclosure requirements in an amended contract with the company to understand costs. But it will give some look at alternatives.
“If a company has a well thought-out proposal with sound fundamentals they want us to look at, they can send it to us and we’ll take a look at it,” McLeod wrote in an email. “Our main interest is to ensure there continues to be a reliable ferry service between Yarmouth and Maine, based on realistic costs, the right business plan and the best interests of Nova Scotians.”
McLeod did not respond to a question about whether the province has received similar statements of interest from other ferry operators.
McNeil said that Canamerica’s proposal would require some financial support from the province, but he said the group has not yet run the numbers on how much they would need from Nova Scotia to make the service viable. It would not seek support from Maine, he said, and would be headquartered in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.
The province’s contract and $21 million subsidy was determined after review by an expert panel that found the service needed to be a “cruise ferry” that focused more on onboard amenities than ferry service. The report found the service would eventually need to return to passenger traffic of between 130,000 to 135,000 per year, more than double the traffic on the Nova Star in its first season.
The province had agreed to give Nova Star Cruises $21 million Canadian over seven years but that amount — and another $5 million — was spent to keep the service running through the first season. The 2012 report estimated startup costs at about $5 million with a total of $30 million to $35 million needed to restart the service.
Operators of the Nova Star have requested help from Maine to secure an additional $5 million line of credit, a task with which Gov. Paul LePage said he would help by drafting legislation to that effect. His office hasn’t specified just how the bill would allow the state to extend that credit.
McNeil’s announcement of Canamerica’s bid for the Yarmouth-Portland ferry service has included criticism of many aspects of the Nova Star’s operation, from the size of the ship to the price and progress of advance bookings for the 2015 sailing season.
“If you’re at Oct. 20 and you’re not taking reservations and you’re starting in May, that shows their inexperience to run a proper ferry line,” McNeil said. “They’re headed down the same road that they started on last year.”
Bailey said that the Nova Star is currently revamping its website and booking system, but that passengers could make reservations by calling the company. And he said the company is in discussions with motor coach tours, which typically book their charters a year or more in advance. The Nova Star ended its season early this year, which it attributed to a low volume of motor coach traffic.
Bailey said he questions why McNeil’s group was not involved in the same bidding process as the Nova Star, calling McNeil’s effort “a little bit of backpedaling.”
“There are a few things that are missing, which is that the province issued a [request for proposals] over a year ago for this route and they had some very specific criteria,” Bailey said. “This group had an opportunity to bid on the route, but they didn’t. So, it’s like, where were they?”
McNeil said his group was not part of bidding in the last request for proposals from the province because they were rebuffed after spending $70,000 on an earlier bidding process and thought that the 2013 effort to restart the ferry service would not be complete before a change of government in October 2013.
That change put Premier Stephen McNeil in charge of the provincial government. Bruce McNeil said there’s no relation.
“If I was, I wouldn’t be doing any loans,” McNeil joked, “I would be asking for free money.”