View full sizePort Stanley harbor in 2004. A beach, shops, lodging, fishing and restaurants are part of the economy of this Canadian town, where officials favor tourism over trucks delivered by a ferry from Cleveland.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Queen Mary it won't be, but passenger service may finally cross Lake Erie from Cleveland to Canada, possibly by 2013.
Authorities on both sides of the border are again talking about ferry service that would dock somewhere near Cleveland Browns Stadium and go back and forth to Port Stanley, Ontario. The idea for a ferry dates back many years.
Initially, the service would probably be a two-year trial. And it would be started in the wake of the failure of a similar project that connected Rochester, N.Y., with Toronto.
Canadian and local authorities have selected a U.S.-based vessel management company to develop a plan to haul people, cars and a limited number of trucks across the lake. Officials want to focus the service on tourism.
"That's a change we've made primarily because Port Stanley told us right off the bat they don't want a lot of trucks," said Cleveland-Cuyahoga Port Authority President William Friedman. "They see their future as more tourism, less industrial type of activities."
The vessel management company, HMS Global Maritime of New Albany, Ind., is studying the types of boats that can go between the ports and analyzing the viability of the venture.
Certain restrictions are in place because Port Stanley's harbor is not as deep as Cleveland's. The draft of a ship's hull determines the minimum depth of water a vessel can navigate.
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"You certainly don't want it to hit bottom as that cruise ship in Italy," Friedman said, referring to the Costa Concordia, which ran aground and partially sank on the western coast of Italy.
Port Stanley's harbor is not dredged. If the operator chooses a vessel that requires dredging, authorities said they will have to negotiate a deal for that.
A hurdle that hindered a deal in the past is gone. The city of Central Elgin now owns Port Stanley. The Canadian government transferred the port to the local authorities in late 2010. Before that, the federal government on that side of the border had refused to consent to a transnational agreement to allow for a shuttle.
On the American side, nearly $7 million in federal government grants remain earmarked for ships and a terminal for the first Northeast Ohio port city that nails down a ferry deal.
This type of service has been tried before on the Great Lakes and failed. A privately operated $42 million catamaran ran briefly between Rochester and Toronto in the early 2000s.
Rochester officials hoped it would make the city an international tourist destination. The mayor likened it to the city's "phoenix, rising up."
The five-story vessel with room for 774 passengers and 220 cars had a fare of about $30 a person. But ridership was never steady. After 80 days, the operator canceled the operation, saying the company was nearly $2 million in debt.
Rochester tried to resurrect the service. The city bought the catamaran at a bankruptcy auction in 2005, but municipal ownership didn't help. The service lost $1 million a month over 10 months, draining a reserve fund. City officials sold the Australian-built catamaran in late 2006.
The trip between Cleveland and Port Stanley would take about 31/2 hours. Details, such as the number of vessels, prices, schedule and amenities, have not been determined. In a best-case scenario, the first pilot season would run during the warmer months of 2013.
"We're trying to minimize costs up front and determine how we can get this service started with the least amount of money being spent," Friedman said. "We want to see how customers respond to it. Nobody knows if it would be sustainable."