With the departure of an American Cruise Lines ship on Wednesday, Bucksport’s cruise-ship season has begun and town officials hope to see more of the watercraft gliding under the Penobscot Narrows Bridge before summer’s end.
Especially foul weather forced the ship American Constitution to forgo a visit to Bar Harbor and make an unscheduled stop at the town dock on Tuesday. A busload of ship passengers were bused to Rockland that day before departing at 9 a.m. the next morning, said Richard Rotella, Bucksport’s economic development director.
Some passengers visited downtown Bucksport, harbor master Mike Ormsby said.
They don’t expect cruise ship traffic in Bucksport to rival the heavy traffic in Portland or Bar Harbor, but Bucksport officials have been pitching the town to international cruise lines since last winter as a scheduled destination stop. They hope to add to visits from ships in the fleet of American Cruise Lines, a river cruise company that has docked ships in Bucksport for at least a decade — often to bus passengers to Acadia National Park or Rockland.
A Norwegian ship, the Hurtigruten Group’s MS Fram, became the first international cruise ship to visit Bucksport on a scheduled stop on Oct. 18, 2018. Some 90 passengers disembarked, visiting downtown businesses and nearby Fort Knox.
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No international-ship visits have been scheduled yet, but bad weather or overcrowding at other state ports could force foreign ships to call on Bucksport. Ormsby mentioned Bucksport and Portland as Maine municipalities with docks long enough to moor cruise ships of riverboat class size or larger, but Eastport has two docks that can carry cruise-ship traffic.
The Eastport Breakwater Pier is 450 feet and Estes Head Cargo Pier is 636 feet long, said Capt. Bob Peacock, a ship pilot in the Port of Eastport and a member of the Eastport Port Authority. The downtown pier reopened last year and welcomed nine cruise ships after a two-year rebuilding, Peacock said.
The Constitution, the ship that stopped in Bucksport on Tuesday, has a listed length of 269 feet, and an overall length of 280 feet. Bucksport has 315 feet of dock, Ormsby said.
Bucksport hosted cruise ships on about 40 days last year, typically during summertime. The town charges ships $2 per foot for each overnight stay at the town dock. The revenue generated by the town for 2018’s visits was not immediately available. Town officials count the number of days a ship visits, rather than ships themselves, because ships often stay for more than one day, Ormsby said.
“The Constitution was going to stay today, too, but they also have to go to Camden and the weather has calmed down enough so that they could go,” he added.
The town plans to continue through summer to add to its harbor capacity with several initiatives:
— A $40,000 study to determine how to engineer the dock flotation system with concrete supports and add 85 feet to the 315-foot town dock. The engineering would include the lengthening of the ramp that disabled passengers use to access ships, Ormsby said.
The town has applied for a $30,000 Maine Department of Transportation grant and will contribute $10,000 to fund the study, Ormsby said.
— The installation of diesel fuel tanks to complement gasoline tanks at the dock for ship refueling. A $30,000 Maine transportation department grant and the town will cover the $60,000 job, Ormsby said.
— The enlistment of local merchants to help resupply cruise ships as part of a scheduled service. Cruise ships often visit local stores ad hoc when supplies run low, Ormsby said.
“They have come to the Hannaford shopping center and bought them out of every case of wine they had,” Ormsby said.