I've long wondered if in modern times a sea link between the Northeast and Florida would be feasible.

The primary audience, I think, would be people who want to go south with their cars. This would allow those going to Florida on holiday a pleasant alternative to driving or a car rental, and also would be very helpful to the many "snowbird" types, saving them either having cars in both the North and South, or driving, or the expensive cost of having a car shipped up and back on a car-carrying truck.

I'm thinking a large, fast ro-pax (that is, a roll-on roll-off/passenger ship combination - like the big overnight ferries used in Europe in particular by companies like DFDS, Grandi Navi Veloci, Silja Line, Superfast, TT-Line, Viking Line, etc.), designed for year round, open-sea service (they do it in the Baltic), with a capacity of approximately one car per cabin (we're assuming that most people are bringing cars with them) and a speed sufficient to move from the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic down to Florida.

Of course special terminals would be built on either end.

The scheduling could be arranged as a daily overnight service using two ships (one ship each way nightly - this is where the speed of the ships comes in) from an easily accessible point, strategically located so that it is just far enough north that the drive to Florida is long enough to be a pain, and to be easily accessible to most of the potential passengers in the northeast.

Fares would be European-style, that is, transportation, no meals. You pay per-person, plus per vehicle. Dining options are available on board at extra cost - a large buffet restaurant (for most passengers), a small à la carte, and a café for snacks. Of course you would have to keep people busy - with an eye twoards selling them things - so the ship would be fitted with a cinema (free, with recent-release movies), various lounges with musical entertainment (of course having bars selling drinks - onboard revenue, remember), and so on (like an abbreviated cruise ship, and again modeled after the large ro-pax ferries in Europe).

Of course the ships would have to be US-flag, so as to avoid the massive inconvenience of an operation like the one DFDS tried in 1980, Scandinavian World Cruises, which used foreign-flag ships (the main vessel was the purpose-built SCANDINAVIA, better known as STARDANCER, VIKING SERENADE, and ISLAND ESCAPE in later incarnations), thus the service was New York-Freeport, and entailed passengers and vehicles changing ships to one of two smaller vessels from the Bahamas to Florida. I'm surprised that one even got off the ground. Who would want to go through all the trouble of changing ships in the Bahamas? (By the way, it was the brainchild of Bruce Nirenberg, later founder of Premier, President of NCL and Costa, etc.)

Incidentally, I first thought of this a few years ago while on Amtrak's "Auto Train", that is, a train that carries passengers and their cars overnight from Virginia (outside Washington DC) to Florida (outside Orlando). I am sure that a ship would be far more enjoyable, and it could probably be helped by moving the embarkation point a bit farther north as well (for New Yorkers, that particular train essentially meets you half way). The train obviously provides a rather confined environment, it is not especially cheap, and food and service are generally poor, but it is quite popular anyway, because of the lack of good alternatives (especially for holiday travellers who do not wish to rent a car).

quote:

---

Originally posted by Keitaro:
What ship do you think would be good for this kind of service?

---

Market research would have to be done as to size, percentage of passengers travelling with cars, cargo/trucks that might be able to be carried (if there is a market?), etc.

If the government would allow a foreign-built ship, something suitable and used could possibly be found (though two ships would be ideal). Speed might rule a lot of vessels out though...

Of course the best would be to build a new ship.

Current ships that are along the lines of what I'm thinking of (note, this does not mean they are for sale) - by owner, for convenience of my writing this message. Links are from Fakta om Fartyg and all in Swedish, so you may want to take a look at this list of translated words.

Color Line (Norway): COLOR FESTIVAL, KRONPRINS HARALD

DFDS (Denmark): CROWN OF SCANDINAVIA, DUKE OF SCANDINAVIA, PEARL OF SCANDINAVIA, PRINCE OF SCANDINAVIA, PRINCESS OF SCANDINAVIA (sister to PRINCE), QUEEN OF SCANDINAVIA

Grandi Navi Veloci (Italy): EXCELLENT (yes, that is her name - GNV has rather "boastful" ship names), EXCELSIOR (sister to EXCELLENT),
LA SUPERBA, LA SUPREMA (sister to LA SUPERBA), MAJESTIC

P&O Ferries (UK): PRIDE OF BILBAO, PRIDE OF LE HAVRE, PRIDE OF PORTSMOUTH (sister to PRIDE OF LE HAVRE)

Silja Line (Finland/Sweden): FINNJET (a very special ship, the first large gas-turbine passenger ship, back in 1977, and the last until MILLENNIUM in 2000), SILJA FESTIVAL (sister to Color Line's COLOR FESTIVAL, above)

Star Cruises (Malaysia): STAR PISCES (sister to DFDS' PEARL OF SCANDINAVIA, above)

Stena Line (Sweden): STENA GERMANICA, STENA SAGA (sister to DFDS' QUEEN OF SCANDINAVIA, above), STENA SCANDINAVICA (sister to STENA GERMANICA)

Tallink (Estonia): FANTASIAA (sister to Viking Line's ROSELLA, above)

Trasmediterranea (Spain): CUIDAD DE BADAJOZ (and sisters), FORTUNY, SOROLLA (sister to FORTUNY)

TT-Line (Germany): NILS HOLGERSSON, PETER PAN (sister to NILS HOLGERSSON)

Viking Line (Finland): AMORELLA, GABRIELLA (sister to DFDS' CROWN OF SCANDINAVIA, above), ISABELLA (sister to AMORELLA, above), MARIELLA (sister to P&O's PRIDE OF BILBAO, above), ROSELLA (sister to Tallink's FANTAASIA, above)

That should give a good variety of various examples of the type of vessel I'm thinking of... There are many more, this type of vessel is quite numerous in Europe.

[ 03-24-2003: Message edited by: cruiseny ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Keitaro:
Why is there sister-ferries than are with different lines?

---

They already have one sailing something like that!

They tried running a Victoria,BC to Seatte,WA service and it was run for years by a classic 1948 built ship and did well (summers only) then Stena tried and failed to run it too, but I lived in Vicoria BC for years and saw the mistakes that we're made!

But YES a New York-to say Port Canaveral would work or Tampa-Houston or even Tampa-San Juan, even Halifax to Boston, even better, or Halifax to New York City.

But you could not do say New York-Miami, it would be too tight and you would probably be better off say a NY-PC or Ft Lauderdale service.

I'm surprised NO ONE is doing like a NY-Bermuda-Fort Lauderdale car/ferry service!

You would need a ship carrying say 1500-2000 passengers and 150-200 cars, plus you would need a fairly large Casino, I'd say 6000sq ft for revenue purposes.

quote:

---

Originally posted by moodus2:
great idea! the ms scotia prince is a cruise ferry that sails between portland,me. and yarmouth,ns. every spring,summer and fall.

---

"Cruise ferry" is pushing it a bit, I think... Mind you in North America she's the only thing vaguely resembling one, so I guess the description is warranted...

quote:

---

a u.s.a. ship from boston to florida would take 2 days. a converted freighter like the one built by kaviner shipyard of philadelphia,pa. could work.

---

Boston - too far north, and too long. I also doubt that people from the NY/NJ area would want to go north in order to go south. The key is to find a point at the southern tip of the intended market, so that everyone just drives south a couple of hours (or not at all) depending on where they are to get on the ship.

You'd then schedule the ship so that even if it was a 20-someodd hour voyage, only one overnight is involved. This could be done each way, by having two ships.

quote:

---

Originally posted by moodus2:
the trouble is american shipyards know how to build ships not huge floating chlorine bottles that are to resemble cruiseships.

---

Well this would be a ferry, not a cruise ship, and if you look at my examples, most of them are "floating chlorine bottle" type. Most ro-ros are not very attractive .

quote:

---

Originally posted by moodus2:
if you look at www.matsonline.com and look at a ship is born you would see what type a ship i would propose.

---

Huh? That seems to be a web site about fatigue-preventing mats... Not ships.

quote:

---

the trip would take 35 hours from new york to jacksonville,fl.

---

A little long. At that legnth you could just barely avoid having to spend two nights on the ship... That is, if she left in the morning and arrived the next afternoon.

Also would it be possible to run a NYC to Florida service via Nassau in less than 20 hrs with the right ship? A foreign ship could be used, and I am not sure if you are required to actually let people out at a foreign port( but it could stop in Nassau), just for a few hrs then go to Florida!

I'm not sure if the Jones Act specifically states how long you need to call at a foreign port for or if people actually have to get out??

If not this would work perfectly, then a foreign built ship could be used!

Cause then you could run New York City,Nassau,Fort Lauderdale or Port Canaveral.
and it could be done Year-Round or at least Mar-Dec. something like that.

quote:

---

Originally posted by gpcruisedude:
cruiseny; would something similar to the former "Scandanavia" work with more powerful engines? I'm not sure what the former Scandanavia did in terms of speed when she ran N.Y. to Nassau??

---

Something along her lines would do... She was a forerunner of many of the 1980s super-ferries in Europe. Need to be faster though.

quote:

---

Also would it be possible to run a NYC to Florida service via Nassau in less than 20 hrs with the right ship? A foreign ship could be used, and I am not sure if you are required to actually let people out at a foreign port( but it could stop in Nassau), just for a few hrs then go to Florida!

---

Passengers would have to get off the ship and onto another.

It's a long story and I don't feel like explaining it right now . I'll dig up something I wrote somewhere else on the topic and post it here in a few minutes.

quote:

---

If not this would work perfectly, then a foreign built ship could be used!

---

The only hope for a foreign-built ship would be if another act of Congress (like the one for NCL in Hawaii) allowed foreign-built ships to be used in this coastwise service under the US flag.

Under the PSA, using a foreign-registered ship would take far too long and be far too complicated to be pratical. Anyone embarking on such a venture would be digging themselves right into the same hole that DFDS did with SCANDINAVIA.

DFDS was assuming (wrongly) that they could convince Congress to scrap the PSA entirely and allow foreign-flag ships to be engaged in US coastal service. I believe the case against the requirement for ships to be built here is much weaker than the one for ships to be flagged here.

quote:

---

It's a long story and I don't feel like explaining it right now . I'll dig up something I wrote somewhere else on the topic and post it here in a few minutes.

---

Would it help if the northern terminus was, say, Philadelphia?

I don't know where to find the mileage between various places by sea, so it's hard to calculate.