Ferry fever
The CATS Fast Ferry has been making the headlines daily for the past couple of weeks, ever since it returned from engine repairs in Toronto.
Drama is the best way to describe it. There’s been a swirl of speculation over whether it will actually meet the dates of the maiden voyage and the beginning of regular passenger service. Coast Guard inspections, the transfer of ownership from the builder to the operator, even issues with Canadian Customs have all been pumped up to amazing proportions.
Naysayers are all saying, well, nay—that it will be interminably delayed, a financial flop and fantastic failure. Meanwhile, the company is being very tight-lipped about everything, sticking only to the company line that everything is on schedule and details like these are expected.
If I was running it, I’d feed exactly this sort of controversy because, well, the papers only print bad news. So if you wnat to make the headlines, you have to manufacture bad news.
The Breeze carried passsengers for the first time yesterday, taking the press, politicians and assorted dignitaries on a half-hour cruise out into the lake.
This morning the regular “Book a Trip” link on the web site has been replaced by a bright red “Now booking June 19th” one, so it appears there’s still room for others on my trip Saturday morning. One wonders what happened to all the June 18th trips. Apparently they’re all booked since this morning’s paper says regular passenger service begins on Friday.
In any event, I’m beginning to have confidence that I won’t have to use Plan B (the train) or Plan C (the bus) come Saturday morning.
