"We had a really strong summer," said Jerod Blanchette, co-owner of the Portsmouth, N.H., passenger vessel operator. A big plus is that the city is undergoing a growth spurt, and many business conferences that used to take place in Boston have moved north to Portsmouth.
Sightseeing is the strongest of the company's offerings that also include party cruises, weddings, and corporate events. They've rehabbed the interior of the 340-passenger, 83'4"�25'�7'1" steel hulled Thomas Laighton and are replacing a 40-passenger boat, which the business had outgrown, with one double the capacity.
Isles of Shoals is emblematic of an industry that is slowly expanding.
River, harbor and coastal passenger vessel operators are gradually adding boats, stretching seasons, and some are increasing fares by mid-single digit percentages. They're also beefing up security, making plans to sail to Cuba, and waiting anxiously for Congress to decide the fate of what could be a very expensive requirement for out-of-water survival craft.
And there's a flip side to the low energy prices that's hurting some other sectors of the workboat industry.
"We're having a good year. The price of gas is down and people have more money to spend," said Troy Manthey, chief of Yacht StarShip, which has two vessels in Tampa, Fla., and one in Clearwater, Fla. "The big difference is the corporate and convention markets have come back very strong."
Manthey said the company is opening a new water taxi service in Tampa in late January and they're renovating three vessels - two 50-passenger and one 40-passenger.
New Orleans Steamboat Co. also has growth plans. The New Orleans-based company is building a 600-passenger, 160'�36' boat to join the 1,600-passenger Natchez, built in 1975, for harbor and dinner cruises and private charters on the Mississippi River. The new vessel is expected to enter service in late 2017. CEO Gordon Stevens said that with tourism and travel up substantially, business has surpassed pre-Katrina numbers.
STRONG 2015
Last year also was a good one for St. Croix Boat & Packet Co., which had its best season since 2000. "It was super," said Dick Anderson, founder of the Stillwater, Minn., company whose six boats run from mid-April to late-October.
Traditionally, the passenger mix has been 60% corporate and 40% public/private. "It turned exactly the opposite" last year, he said. As for 2016, "I think the economy's coming back."
In Cleveland, Nautica Queen Dinner Cruise Ship's business was up more than 10% from 2014 to 2015. And Capt. Jim Dale, the port captain, expects this year to be good too, noting that the city will host the Republican National Convention in July.
"We did a lot of weddings and a lot of tour groups," during a season that runs from Easter to New Year's, Dale said. The increase is a reflection of the city's resurgence. They're also considering replacing the 385-passenger, 102'3"�31'1"�8'9" Nautica Queen, built in 1981, with a newer vessel.
"The good news is Cleveland is getting busier," Dale said, "but it does add to some anxiety with all the smaller vessels around." He echoed many operators' concerns about the profusion of recreational boats ranging from runabouts and canoes to kayaks and paddleboards that often get too close for comfort and whose passengers are clueless about the rules of the road.
Out West, the Columbia and Snake rivers have their own traffic issues. The beautiful scenery is attracting even more overnight cruise vessels.
American Cruise Lines' 150-passenger American Pride (formerly Queen of the Mississippi) will join its Queen of the West on the Columbia-Snake this year. The latter ran at full occupancy in 2015, and 2016 bookings "are going very well," said Charles Robertson, who heads both Guilford, Conn.-based ACL and Chesapeake Shipbuilding, Salisbury, Md.
American Empress' second year on the Columbia-Snake was "fabulous," said Ted Sykes, president and chief operating officer of American Queen Steamboat Co. (AQSC), Memphis, Tenn. Nineteen back-to-back cruises were sold out, and they're already over half booked for this year.
The vessel is extending the season several weeks to the end of November, adding two cruises "because we were oversold," he said. They're also offering full Mississippi River cruises because people were stitching trips together to sail the entire river - an itinerary especially appealing to international travelers.
As for the new rival in the Northwest, Sykes said, "There's room for more. We will compete on our product."
"The more the merrier," seconded Dan Blanchard, CEO of Un-Cruise Adventures, Seattle, noting that the company appeals to a different clientele than the other four vessels on the rivers.
Last year, the company stretched the 88-passenger S.S. Legacy's season through the summer rather than just spring and fall, a move Blanchard termed successful. So they'll be running late March to late November again, and bookings already are strong. The 192'�40' vessel, built in 1983 by Bender Shipbuilding, was renovated in 2013.
"All our operations are up substantially," said Blanchard, whose company also offers cruises to Alaska, Latin America and Hawaii. "We have a need for another one or two U.S.-flag vessels, and we'd like to add another foreign flag to meet demand."
Sykes said the outlook for both the Empress and the American Queen, which sails the Mississippi, is "really good. We have more than twice as much booked as this time last year." So will they add a vessel to their fleet? "We're constantly looking for additional tonnage," he said.
ACL's Robertson is building his own tonnage. The 185-passenger 260'�53'�8' sternwheeler America will make its first cruise on the Mississippi in late April. The 175-passenger, 276' hulls 119 and 120, both coastal cruisers, are due out in 2017 and 2018. ACL also will introduce another riverboat in 2018, and the American Eagle will be renamed Queen of the Mississippi.
"Our outlook is relatively bullish," he said. ACL's Alaska schedule is "virtually sold out" for 2016.
ALASKA, cuba markets
The 49th state is hot indeed.
"We just can't keep up with our demand in Alaska," which along with the Antarctic are the top two destinations for Lindblad Expeditions, a spokesman said. They recently signed a $95 million deal with Nichols Brothers Boat Builders, Whidbey Island, Wash., for two, 100-passenger U.S.-flag coastal cruisers due out in 2017 and 2018.
The 238'6"�48'�9'6" vessels will cruise Alaska, the Columbia-Snake, Baja California, Costa Rica and Panama. Lindblad owns six boats, of which two are U.S. flagged.
The next hot passenger vessel market may be Cuba.
Jorge Fernandez is gearing up for a market that hasn't been open in about a half century.
"We are moving fast. We have our offices set up at Port Manatee (Tampa)," said the CEO of Havana Ferry Partners, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., one of the first companies to get a license from the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control for ferry service between the U.S. and Cuba.
"The spirit of cooperation is very positive," Fernandez said. They hope to start trips in early 2016 after ironing out compliance issues with the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the Cuban government.
They're considering a couple of vessels that can each carry 400 passengers and hoped to have made a decision by the end of January on whether to buy or build. The ferry was expected to be U.S. flag "as of now," he said.
The company may eventually also offer service from Key West and either Miami or Fort Lauderdale. Travel time from Tampa is about eight hours and from Key West under 3.5 hours at 30 knots.
Fares have not been established yet "but they are going to be very competitive," Fernandez said.
Cruise ships also are planning to visit the island. Among them is Pearl Seas Cruises' 210-passenger Pearl Mist, which makes its first 10-day trip from Miami to Cuba in early March.
Charles Robertson, who also owns U.S.-flagged ACL, is the president of Pearl Seas. He said spring cruises are nearly sold out.
NEW BOATS FOR SEATTLE, SAN FRANCISCO
Dirk Rozema is broadening his reach with his first commercial-government tour boat.
The 49-passenger craft for Seattle City Light's tours of Diablo Lake is a "completely new design," said the president of Rozema Boat Works, Mount Vernon, Wash. He expects the aluminum 55'x16'x30" boat with twin John Deere 6091s and Hamilton 364 waterjets to be delivered in the spring.
Rozema said he bid on the project because "it seemed like a perfect fit" given the size of the vessel and the fact that the client was "essentially in our backyard." The cabin is almost all glass "so there's a lot of openness."
The visibility and the 14' aft deck were very appealing, said Jon Aguirre, project manager, Seattle City Light's fleet and mobile equipment group. The Alice Ross IV will be the only tour boat in a fleet that includes three tugs and other smaller vessels. It will run from early July to mid-September on the lake formed by one of three hydroelectric dams on the Skagit River about three hours northeast of Seattle.
"It's a totally different concept for us as far as a tour boat," Aguirre said, with one instead of several decks and air conditioning. "This was the first boat designed for us."
There were three bids on the $1.7 million project.
Farther down the coast, another agency expects to award a contract in early summer for up to three 400-passenger, high-speed aluminum catamarans. San Francisco's Water Emergency Transportation Authority (WETA), which operates ferry service in the Bay area, wants vessels with Tier 4 diesels that will operate about 3,000 hours a year and can make 34 knots fully loaded. - D.K. DuPont