MV CAPE MAY

scrapped

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Course/Position

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Ferry dying before time

The "Cape May" is being taken apart at the Maurice River. The Dennis Township-based Northstar Marine Services, which purchased the Ferry in 2013 for $750,000. The company will turn part of the hull into a barge to work on southern New Jersey bridges and possibly service offshore wind turbines. It will be one of the largest barges in the region, 68 feet wide and 320 feet long and complete with bow thrusters to move it into position. After the Delaware River & Bay Authority decided to turn the vessel which was used as a transportation link between New Jersey and Delaware into small cruise ships, the remodeling of the "Cape May" added steel decks on a shallow draft vessel designed to ply the shoal-plagued Delaware Bay. It made the vessel so top heavy the U.S. Coast Guard would not let it sail on windy days. It took more crew members to run it and burned 25 more gallons of diesel fuel per hour. By 2009 the "Cape May" was left tied to the dock as the costs to run it and declining ferry ridership made it obsolete. Most of the steel hull was now going to a scrap yard in Millville, but just about everything else is for sale via an Internet site: www.goodbuyferry.com Report with photo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/a-cape-may-lewes-ferry-scrapped-as-white-elephant/2013/12/07/1f513354-5f55-11e3-8d24-31c016b976b2_story.html