Hawaii Superferry shuts down

Hawaii Superferry shuts down    Hawaii Superferry shut down operations on Thursday and said it would look for some other location to operate its high-tech catamaran.
   The company’s decision came in the wake of a decision by the Hawaii’s Supreme Court on Monday that found unconstitutional a state law that allowed the high-tech catamaran to operate between Oahu and Maui islands while an environmental study was prepared.
   Activists had complained the high-speed catamaran could injure whales and damage the ecology of the islands by spreading invasive species.
   Tom Fargo, president and chief executive of Hawaii Superferry, said in a statement that the company was “hugely disappointed with the Supreme Court’s decision.
   'The problem before us today is there appears to be no short-term solution to this ruling. To conduct another EIS, even with the work done to date, and move it through legal review might take a year or so. Other options don’t provide the certainty necessary to sustain a business.”
   “As a result, we are going to have to go out and find other employment for Alakai, for now,” he added. Alakai is the $85 million aluminum ferry that was built for the company by Austal in Mobile, Ala. It is capable of carrying 866 passengers and 282 cars (or 28 40-foot trucks and 65 cars) at a speed of 35 knots (40 miles per hour). A sister ship was due to be delivered this year.
   A company headed by John Lehman, President Reagan's former Navy secretary, is a major investor in the project. The U.S. Maritime Administration backed the project with a $140 million shipbuilding guarantee.
   Fargo expressed gratitude to the more than 250,000 customers that had rode or booked voyages on the ship, as well as “the businesses that have sailed with us and now have apparently lost an economical alternative — Love’s Bakery, CFI, Expeditors, FedEx, to name a few, as well as a host of smaller companies.”