Home of Today's Common Sense

Published Brownsville Herald May 24, 2010

Many of you will remember the January 12,1997 story in the Brownsville Herald Ferry gets ready to sail on Gulf waters that went on to say “The Regal Voyager, a ferry that will ply the waters between Port Isabel and Puerto Cortes, Honduras, is a unique ship — part cargo vessel, part Loveboat.
It boasts luxury cabins, a discotheque, a gift shop, and two hot tubs. It can carry up to 450 passengers and up to 360 cars or 60 tractor trailers.”
That was the realization of a dream for me. All my education and career experience pointed towards pioneering such a venture and here it was.
Things did go very well for awhile as another article as late as December 28, 1997 in the Herald on would indicate. SHIP AHOY! Business is booming for Regal Voyager “the Regal Voyager has been full during the past four weeks – About 200 people have made reservations for this trip,”
Then a Jan 28, 1998 story described the doom Ferry’s future sinks Regal Voyager won’t make any more trips The ferry, which was launched a year ago this month, is out of business. So is the company that ran it — the Isabel Cortes Ferry Service Ltd.
Bob Cornelison, director of the Port Isabel//San Benito Navigation District,said it best “the Regal Voyager is now in Tampa, Fla.
“I don’t expect it to return,” he said. “The ferry broke down off the
Yucatan Peninsula and I was told it would take another $1 million for a new overhaul. “They (the vessel owners) felt they have offended so many people and the ship has gained a reputation for unreliability. They thought they were better off by not returning,” the port director said of the ferry’s management.”
No replacement ship that met the requirements could be found. The company ceased operations and the backers lost their substantial investments but most of all a dream was lost or was it?
The story starts again when -The Inter-American Development Bank , Washington, D.C. the largest source of development financing for Latin America and the Caribbean, with a strong commitment to achieve measurable results, increased integrity, transparency and accountability – have an evolving reform agenda that seeks to increase our development impact in the region – posted related to the completion of their study on April 30,2010 Project RS-T1178 : Pan-American Maritime Highway, that specifically deals with Car passenger Ferry Service, that they describe as “The key aspects of the proposed Project are envisioned as follows: (i) increased passenger, tourists and commercial traffic between countries; (ii) additional facilities for transportation of import-export activities; (iii) reduce vehicular traffic congestion at border crossings; (iv) improve the quality of travel and the safety of passengers and cargo by parking transit-bound vehicles aboard the Main and Feeder RoPax Vessels; and (v) decrease air pollution from roads traffic.”
I.A.D.B. representatives were in Brownsville in February of 2006 to interview a number of folks involved in shipping which included then Brownsville Port Director Bernard List, who was a principal in the only other ferry operation, that meets the description of The Pan-American Maritime Highway, Port Isabel Port Director, Bob Cornelison several of the Transmigrante Forwarders, and individual travelers. I am told by a number unnamed participants that the report indicates that demand still lives!
While better facilities exist elsewhere the market is here in the Valley, the folks travelling are already familiar with the trip to get here and comfortable with the conversational language they find here.
Certainly, since I participated in the development of the first ferry operation, I am certainly interested in the revival.
I suspect that the Walmart in Port Isabel whose shelves emptied on the Sunday the ship departed would also like to see the Ferry return. I also think that the transmigranties who still travel through Mexico, risking the increased violence would love to see an alternative.
What would it take to make it work again?
First a facility must be found. Though there is a dock that meets the criteria at Port Isabel which is reported to be fully utilized, and even an arrangement could be reached for the dock’s use future requirements of the lessees may well preclude a permanent arrangement.
There are no docks within Port Brownsville specifically configured for the roll on / roll off type of cargo. Further, the two hour trip from the sea to port facilities is a big obstacle because of the cost and the discomfort of any passengers.
Were the Port develop a dock nearer to the sea for vessels that depend on timely movement of such cargos as container, roll on and off vehicles and trailers, cars and passengers, not to mention smaller boutique cruise ships there would certainly be more interest. As it happens an excellent possible location currently exists on Hwy 48 at the ship channel just before arriving at Port Isabel. It would be a better gamble than the amount bet on the rail bridge.
So it would seem that since the Inter-American Development Bank used such an interesting name as the Pan American Maritime Highway for vessels to take part in – there may well be a future. I just dreamed my dream ten years too early!