Northumberland Ferries says the ferry won’t run for the rest of Sunday
The ferry service between Prince Edward Island (P.E.I.) and Nova Scotia has been canceled for the rest of Sunday. This comes just one day after it started running again after being shut down for two weeks because of a mechanical problem.
Around 2 p.m. on Sunday, Northumberland Ferries sent a text message to customers telling them that the MV Confederation would not be running between Wood Islands and Caribou because of “technical issues.”
On Sunday, the ferry still had to make two more round trips. It was supposed to leave Wood Islands at 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. The ship is now in Wood Islands, where it is docked.
The boat stopped running on June 17. After a part was put in, it was back in service on Saturday.
Mark Wilson, Northumberland Ferries’ senior vice president, said that the cancellation on Sunday was caused by something else.
“The repaired port main engine coupling is working well,” Wilson wrote in an email. “The technical issue is now with the starboard main engine coupling.”
Wilson said that there will be no more ferry service for the rest of the day.
“NFL will let us know later today when we can expect to be back to normal,” he said.
Service shutdowns ‘crushing
Some business owners in P.E.I. were just told on Saturday that the ferry service would start up early, so the new closure is a slap in the face.
Northumberland Ferries said at first that the closure could last until the middle of July because the part needed to fix the ship had to be made from scratch and sent from Germany.
Wood Islands business owners told CBC News that the longer closure would be terrible for them because they depend on tourists who come to the island by ferry.
I said it was terrible when we found out [that the trip was canceled]. Almost, this is worse.– Katherine Bryson, council member for the Municipality of Belfast
Katherine Bryson owns a business in her community and works as a council member for the Municipality of Belfast. After hearing that the store was closing, she started working on a campaign to get people to shop locally.The campaign will start next week and is being paid for by Tourism Prince Edward Island.
“It’s crushing us,” said Bryson. “When the ferry is back up and running, you feel great, but as soon as you hear it’s down, you feel terrible.
“We so desperately depend on a reliable two-ferry service. A lot of these business owners are seasonal and they require that reliable service for that short season. So I said it was terrible when we found out [that the trip was canceled]. Almost, this is worse.”
The Confederation is the only ship that runs between Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia at the moment.
The MV Saaremaa I is in dry dock in Quebec. It replaced the MV Holiday Island after a fire put it out of service for good last July. It will be back on the P.E.I.-Nova Scotia route in the middle of July.
The law says that the federal government owns the Confederation. A permanent replacement for the Holiday Island is in the budget, but that ship is still being designed and won’t be ready until at least 2028.