Nova Star was wrong ship for ferry route, says former Scotia Prince head

The man who ran the ferry service betweenYarmouth andPortland, Maine, fordecades thinks the Nova Star was the wrong vessel for the job.

For 30 years, HenkPols was president and CEO of Scotia Prince Cruises, the companythat ran theferry service to Maine before the CAT ferry from Bay Ferries took over in 2004.

'The wrong ship forthe service'

Pols is now retired and lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. He has been watching the Nova Star situation closely.

"I felt from the beginning that the Nova Star ferry was the wrong ship for the service. It was a vessel that was built for traffic between France and England on the British Channel where they have an enormous amount of freight traffic," he told CBC Radio's Mainstreet.

"That's why the car deck is extremely large to accommodate many, many trucks for which there is no need at all here in the northeast."

He says it's the same story for the number of cabins the vessel had.

Pols isn't surprised the Nova Scotia government is severing its costly relationship with Nova Star Cruisesand has started negotiating with Bay Ferries, which ran the CAT service from 2004 until it was cancelled in 2009.

Bay Ferries operates the ferry running betweenDigby, Nova Scotia and Saint John, New Brunswick. Its parent company,NorthumberlandFerries Limited, operates the ferry service running between Caribou, Nova Scotia and Wood Islands, P.E.I.

Over the past two years, the provincialgovernment has kicked in more than $40 million to keep the Nova Star afloat.

Pols says it's also not surprising a U.S. Federal Court has ordered the seizure of the Nova Star.

"That's to be expected in the shipping business when you don't pay your bills," he said.

Pols says it means the ship will be tied up until it pays its debts.

Nova Star people 'had no notion what they were doing'

Pols is pleased the Nova Scotia government is turning to Bay Ferries to run the service next year. He says the companyhas the expertise to turn a bad situation around.

"I'm sure that whatever they need to market the service, that they will attract and surround themselves with people who know what's going on. And that is one of the major failures of the Nova Star because the people had no notion what they were doing," he said.

Pols says Bay Ferries understands it's not just a matter of providing a boat and then people will flock to it. It must be carefully marketed.

Pols thinks it's unfortunate such a large amount of taxpayermoney has gone down the drain.

"I feel very sad about that and sincerely hope that they can come up with a concept now that is more productive than the one that is going to be abandoned now," he said.