Fast Ferry Catalina Was Repossessed

Passenger Ferry Proposed for New Service From New Bedford Was Centerpiece Of Financial Trouble in California

By JULIA WELLS

The high-speed passenger ferry that the Steamship Authority is negotiating to lease and possibly buy was returned to the Washington state shipyard where it was built because it had mechanical problems - and because it was a financial disaster for the California company that bought it, the Gazette has learned.

Contract talks between management and nurses at the Martha's Vineyard Hospital are now at a bitter standoff, and hospital chief executive officer Kevin Burchill said this week that he is prepared for the possibility of a strike.

"Everything is now off the table. We're prepared for the worst but we expect the best," he said.

Threat of Housing Plan Overshadows Hearing on Oak Bluffs Golf Course

By JULIA WELLS
Gazette Senior Writer

Reports on wildlife habitat, turf management and fiscal impact were the scheduled fare at a public hearing last night on a proposal to build a luxury golf club in the southern woodlands section of Oak Bluffs - but in the end, discussion about the golf course plan was overshadowed by a discussion about housing.

SSA Studies New Deals for New Bedford Ferries

By JULIA WELLS

Steamship Authority treasurer and acting general manager Wayne Lamson said yesterday that a freshly minted plan for a high-speed ferry project laid out last week by the city of New Bedford is now just one of three new proposals.

"We got a proposal last Thursday night, there was the one that New Bedford showed everybody on Saturday, and we got another one just last night," Mr. Lamson said from his office in Woods Hole.

The Cape and Islands senate district - in place since the founding of the Massachusetts legislature - will remain largely intact thanks to the redistricting plan adopted by the state Senate yesterday afternoon.

In a barrage of invective and noisy statements to the press, New Bedford city officials lashed out at the Steamship Authority governors from Falmouth and Nantucket this week for their vote to kill a pilot high-speed ferry project between New Bedford and the Vineyard.