After nearly three days out of service because of repair work to the ship's service generator, the Island Home will be back in commission starting Thursday evening.
A long winter of frequent storms, from October’s Hurricane Sandy to a three-day storm in early March, has been especially difficult for a group of frequent Island visitors: the Steamship Authority’s fleet of vessels, the hardy group that connects the Vineyard to the mainland.
Rough seas have contributed to 94 ferry cancellations in the first two months of 2013 alone, five per cent of the 1,892 scheduled trips, according to data provided by the Steamship Authority.
MOSS POINT, MISS. - Marking history for the Steamship Authority and its fleet of ferries that ply the routes between the Cape and Islands, the Island Home - a 255-foot, double-ended ferry that will replace the venerable MV Islander - was launched Friday morning at the Gulf Coast shipyard where she was built.
More than 300 onlookers cheered and applauded, with air horns wailing, as the still unfinished vessel - freshly painted black and white - slid sideways on five greased tracks and landed in the calm Escatawpa River with a giant splash.
With the state legislative session set to expire in 10 days, a proposal to create public housing banks on Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket appears to be effectively dead for the year.
The special legislation - which would tax some real estate transactions to fund affordable housing initiatives – was still stuck in the house committee on ways and means yesterday afternoon, and, even if approved on the house floor next week, would be subject to a gubernatorial pocket veto that could not be overridden.
The Steamship Authority likely will accede to a requested two-month delay in the delivery of its new 255-foot passenger and vehicle ferry, the Island Home.
SSA general manager Wayne Lamson said members of the boat line board of governors have indicated that they are prepared to honor the request by VT Halter Marine Inc. of Moss Point, Miss., to deliver the Island Home by Jan. 27, 2007, rather than by Nov. 29 of this year.
Pascagoula, Miss. - Machines howl and scream. Bangs, loud and sharp, echo through the steel-frame building. In the shadow under six acres of roof, the tips of welders' torches gleam white hot. The noise is something like a giant dentist's office, or the New York city subway on steroids.
It is a morning in early May inside an aluminum fabrication shop in Pascagoula, Miss. Employees of VT Halter Marine Inc. are working on part of the aluminum superstructure for a vessel now under construction a few miles away at Halter's yard in Moss Point, Miss.
