Thursday, September 1, 2022

Good Bye to Summer (Bay)

  A fixture in Halifax harbour from 2004 to 2018 is en route to new owners in Toronto. The Summer Bay dates from 1997 when it was built by Gatherall's Boat Tours in Bay Bulls, NL. At some point it arrived in Lunenburg as a harbour tour boat, named Gaffer IV, and was renamed Summer Bay. That operation failed and it was acquired by the Halifax operators Murphy's on the Water. They used it for nature tours, fishing trips and harbour tours.

Summer Bay (left) outbound meets fleet mate Kawartha Spirit inbound in 2018.

 Summer Bay at the Cable Wharf with fleet mate Harbour Queen I in the background.

Murphys sold the Halifax harbour tour operation in 2014 and I assume the boat became surplus to needs, as the new owners, Ambassatours, also operate the Harbour Hoppers and three other harbour tour boats (those shown above and the Silva).

This morning I noted (via satellite) the Summer Bay passing Halifax northeast bound from Sambro. It appears to have reached Liscomb this evening. Officially however, the boat's name is Aqualounge. New owners, a numbered company in Toronto, re-registered the boat in Toronto with that name in January. So far they have not re-programmed the AIS transponder.

.


No comments:

Post a Comment