HOS North Star. Steamship Authority.
FALMOUTH – A third vessel has been acquired to bolster the Steamship Authority’s aging fleet with the assistance of federal money from the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority.
The roughly $5.5 million dollar purchase was made possible through a $28 million total agreement with the CCRTA, which Administrator Tom Cahir said is a necessary cost to help keep the region’s transportation running smoothly.
“The Steamship Authority recently had a report suggesting they needed to upgrade their vessels and their bond capacity was such that they would have had to wait a while, but because of our partnership and Bob Davis’s leadership down there, we were able to negotiate an agreement that provides the necessary money right away,” Cahir said.
He said the purchase utilized grants and stimulus money from numerous sources in combination to get the funds to the Steamship Authority in a timely fashion.
“We got CARES Act money, we got CRRSA act money and we got ARPA funds. And each of those legislative documents have different criteria as to how we can spend it. And some of it limited how much we could spend in certain areas. So we had to be creative,” said Cahir.
The Authority purchased the HOS North Star from Louisiana-based Hornbeck Offshore Services.
It will eventually take over for the aging M/V Sankaty. The vessel joins two others acquired and named this year: the M/V Aquinnah and M/V Monomoy.
A new name will be picked for the HOS North Star at a future date from the list generated during the public naming contest in September for the other two ferries.
About Grady Culhane
